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Creator and Creation; 



OR, 



THE KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON 



OF GOD AND HIS WORK. 



BY 






LAURENS P. HICKOK, D. D., LL. D. 



^M^tS) 



y-^. 



t BOSTON : 

LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
New York : 
lee, shepard and dillingham. 

1872. 



~3Lsi 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

By LAURENS P. HICKOK, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
19 Spring Lane. 



PREFACE. 



There must be some point from whence the Uni- 
verse may be observed, and the self-consistent whole 
be fully comprehended. To a spiritual discernment 
from that point the Universe will be known as a Cos- 
mos of order and beauty, and such comprehensive 
knowing will be true wisdom. Intelligences from 
lower positions may be urging their way upward to- 
wards this point of vision, and may be esteemed wise 
proportioned to their -elevation ; but the impulse 
which, from any stair, urges to a higher, is, at least, 
a love of wisdom; and so the spirit of true philosophy 
may be taking any step from the lowest to the high- 
est. But the wisdom here loved and sought must be 
more than a mere apprehension of facts, even the 
comprehension of facts in their essential unity. To 
merely get facts as they appear, and carefully classify 
them, may be called science ; but except as it shall be 
sought to know the facts in their necessary connec- 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

tions comprehensively, the so-called science will have 
in it nothing of philosophy. 

It will, moreover, be a delusive assumption to hold 
that Nature's intrinsic connections can be gained by 
experience, or by any logical deductions from experi- 
ence. Appearances will be found in uniform colloca- 
tions and invariable successions ; but the fact of uni- 
form appearances together in place will not warrant 
a logical conclusion of a substance in which they in- 
here, nor will the fact of appearances in an invariable 
order of sequence admit of the logical conclusion that 
they adhere together in a causal efficiency. Not less 
illogical must it be to rise from such assumed sub- 
stances and causes to one absolute substance or 
cause. Philosophy and Theology must alike be im- 
possible for any sense-attainment, or an understand- 
ing-judgment as a conclusion from sense. If we 
have not the faculty for an insight into experience 
which finds a deeper meaning than the mere appear- 
ance, then must we be incapable either to be wise or 
to love wisdom. 

And so also with Revelation as with Nature. An 
assumed Revelation may be studied, and its facts 
arranged with much learning ; but when a profound 
scepticism meets us, and drives us back of the facts, 
and asks for the validity of prophecy, and miracles, 



PREFACE. 5 

and inspiration, and even for the being of a God 
who can foreknow, and work miracles, and inspire 
human messengers, we are thrown directly back 
upon these old assumptions of Nature's necessary 
connections. No sense-experience puts within the 
consciousness anything by which logic alone can 
enable us to know that which beyond Nature sur> 
ports and connects Nature ; and thus the logical 
understanding is driven helplessly to swing on the 
circle, of taking the Bible's God to make and hold 
together Nature, and then to take Nature's God to 
make and reveal the facts of the Bible. The student 
of the Bible allows himself to rest his faith, ultimate- 
ly, on nothing which has not first appeared in sense- 
experience ; physical science is pushing eagerly and 
earnestly her free inquiries ; many phenomena are 
encountered which run back into sceptical difficul- 
ties ; and seriously or mischievously these stumbling- 
blocks are thrown in the way of religious faith ; and 
then no theology, without a higher philosophy, can 
either pass on over them, or push them out of the 
path. 

We must recognize a higher spiritual faculty than 
sense-experience, as an organ for a spiritual philoso- 
phy, which shall abundantly comprehend and confirm 
our theology ; and therein may all scepticism be fairly 



6 PREFACE. 

met and answered. The phenomena of Nature must 
be seen to be ordered by essential forces back of the 
appearances ; and also faith in Theism must rest on 
truth known to be beyond Nature, and determining 
the order of Nature, though known by the insight 
of reason in Nature. So, seeing in experience what 
is conditional for it, we attain a comprehensive knowl- 
edge of Experience itself. And here only is the open- 
ing to a spiritual philosophy which may be competent 
to silence all sceptical cavilling with our theology. 

As far as is necessary or desirable, the metaphysic 
for such a philosophy has, some years since, been 
given in the Rational Psychology. The physical por- 
tion, necessary in the completion of such philosophy, 
has never yet been adequately presented even in 
outline. This is here attempted : and after a critical 
examination of the leading theories of modern philos- 
ophy, exposing the main point in which with most 
there is an utter, and in the best a partial, deficiency, 
and therein opening the sure process to the knowl- 
edge of an Absolute Creator, the Creation is itself 
speculatively contemplated in its essential Forces, 
and these determined in their necessary connections. 
These essential Forces have their determined con- 
nections in all the mechanism of Inorganic nature ; 
and then a life-power is contemplated as superinduced 






PREFACE. 7 

by the Creator, which uses these essential mechanical 
forces in spontaneously upbuilding about itself, and 
for its own ends, the varied organic structures of the 
Vegetable and Animal kingdoms ; when a contem- 
plated endowment of animal sentient life with reason 
introduces man in the image of the Creator, and 
crowns the creative work with a Spiritual kingdom 
in Humanity which has dominion over all. 

The validity of the speculation, and the stability 
of its connections, must be determined in the compre- 
hensive unity and consistency with which it shuts 
phenomenal facts together in a universe, and the cer- 
tainty with which it puts the origin and consumma- 
tion of the universe in the Absolute Thought and 
Will of a Personal Creator. The importance to the 
present age, so unphilosophical and thus so sceptical, 
of a deeper interest in Speculative Philosophy can 
hardly be over-estimated ; and perhaps by what is 
here attempted, such interest may be somewhat 
quickened and extended. 

Amherst, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 
CHAPTER I. 

PASS 

KNOWLEDGE RESTRICTED TO THAT WHICH IS 
GAINED IN EXPERIENCE 18 

1. Pure Empiricism in the Positive Philosophy 22 

2. Empiricism as expounded by the Laws of Association. 29 

3. Empiricism in the Philosophy of Common Sense. . . 39 

4. Experience of Force given in Muscular Pressure. . 47 

5. The Critical Philosophy 54 

i. First Stage, Critic of Pure Reason 56 

it. Second Stage, Science of Knowledge 59 

Hi. Third Stage, Science of Logic 66 

CHAPTER II. 

REASON COMPETENT TO KNOW AN OUTER CRE- 
ATION 81 

1. The Essential Process to Thorough and Comprehen- 

sive Knowledge 82 

2. Speculative Absurdities in Sense and Logic become 

Truth in the Reason 91 

3. Distinction between knowing Thoughts and knowing 

Things 102 

9 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III. 

REASON KNOWS THE CREATOR 106 

1. A Creator must be Independent of ant Imposed Con- 

dition 107 

2. The Finite Reason can from Itself know the Uni- 

versal 110 

3. The Universal Reason is a Person 113 

4. The Personality of Reason is also Absolute 115 

i. His Being is Absolute 116 

ii. His Sovereignty is Absolute 117 

Hi. His Agency is Absolute 119 

iv. - His Blessedness is Absolute 119 

5. The Absolute Creator is Triune 121 

6. Theism distinct from all Forms of Pantheism. . . . 125 



PAET II. 

KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

Design and Method 131 

CHAPTER I. 
SPACE AND TIME 133 

1. There are mant different Kinds of Space 133 

2. There are different Kinds of Time 135 

3. The Constructions of Sense give Extension and Suc- 

cession ONLY 136 

4. The Logical Judgment gives Place and Period only. 137 

5. The Reason only can know Space and Time 139 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

6. Sameness of Space and Time can be known only in the 

Continuity of the Extension and Succession. . . . 141 

7. This Continuity of Extension and Succession can onlt 

be known through SOME Permanent in Nature. . . 142 

8. This Permanent may still admit of great Modifica- 

tions of the one Space and the one Time 144 

9. The Extension and Succession in the Substantial 

itself give, in the reason, absolutely one space 
and one Time 145 

CHAPTER II. 
FORCE 147 

1. Force determines Phenomena 147 

2. The Elements of Force 151 

FIRST DIVISION. 
ANTAGONIST FORCE. 

1. Creation of Force 156 

2. It is competent for Force to affect any Sense- 

organ 1G1 

3. Force determines Motion 164 

*. Motion from simple excess of energy must be inces- 
sant, uniform, and rectilineal 167 

it. That motion which any superinduced force would 
give must be compounded with the motion which 

the original force already has 168 

Hi. The rate of motion must be directly as the dynamic 
force moving, and inversely as the static force 
moved 174 

4. The Atom is constituted from the created Forces. . 170 

5. Such constituted Atom has its own Nature 179 

6. The Forces constituting the Atom determine what is 

its Inertia 181 

7. The Atom determines Gravity 184 

8. The Atom from its Constitution is a Magnet 190 



12 CONTENTS. 

SECOND DIVISION. 
DIREMPTIVE FORCE. 

1. The Constitution of the Diremptive Atom 195 

2. Ethereal Atoms occasion Heat and Light 198 

3. Ethereal Atoms are the Media op Cohesion 202 

4. Molecules, reciprocally neutralizing their Forces 

in Cohesion, determine Chemical Combinations. . . 20! 

5. Thermal Vibrations determine Solidity or Fluidity. 208 

6. Heat and Peculiar Polarity determine Crystallogeny. 211 

7. Heat-vibration determines Vaporization 216 

8. Heat tibration determines Combustion 219 

9. Superficial Magnetism, made free, determines Elec- 

tricity 222 

i. Electricity as excited by Friction 225 

m. Thermal Electricity 231 

Hi. Electricity chemically excited 232 

THIRD DIVISION. 
REVOLVING FORCE. 

1. A Revolting Force determines the Universe and its 

Absolute Space and Time 237 

2. The Revolving Force determines the Separation and 

Distribution of the Universal Matter 246 

3. Single and Compound Worlds 248 

4. Systems of Worlds 251 

5. The Revolving Force has determined several Phe- 

nomena otherwise inexplicable < . . 255 

i. Gradation in planetary density 255 

ii. Gradation of interplanetary spaces 256 

Hi. Inclination of planetary orbits 256 

iv. Periodic times and heliocentric movement 256 

v. The orbits of the satellites should present greater 

irregularities than those of the planets 257 



CONTENTS. 13 

vi. Planetoids and Saturnian ring 260 

vii. The same matter is co-extensive with the universe. 264 

6. comkts colin into the system fkom without 265 

7. Geological Formations 270 

8. From Facts found in the Universal Stellar Distri- 

bution, we determine our Terrestrial Relative 
Position 274 

CHAPTER III. 
LIFE 284 

1. Life distinguished from Force, in that it deter- 

mines higher Unities 284 

2. The Contemplation of an Agency competent to work 

Individualities 290 

3. The Life-power is an Assimilative Agent 293 

4. The Assimilative Agency must be elevated to an 

Organizing Agency 300 

5. A higher Organizing Instinct works Sex-distinctions. 304 

6. Sexual Propagation carries in it the Unity of Spe- 

cies 309 

7. Not Sex-Instinct, but the Absolute Ideal, determines 

the higher Unity of all Species 316 

8. Organic Life terminates in Death 320 

THE REIGN OF LIFE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 

Vegetable life purely instinctive, organizing direct from the 
mineral kingdom, in unconscious subserviency to the end 
of a superior Realm 325 

THE REIGN OF SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 

The life-power from already prepared cellulose products in- 
stinctively builds up a nervous organism with ganglionic 
centres, thus giving occasion for conscious sentiency, em- 
pirical judgment, and brute-will 331 



14 CONTENTS. 



THE REIGN OF REASON IN HUMANITY- 

Reason, superinduced on sense, has dominion in its own right, 
secures a combined psychical and spiritual body, and in this 
determines Individuality, Identity, and Immortality, with 
prerogative of free personality in Art, Philosophy, Moral- 
ity, and Theology; and thereby Humanity becomes the 
crown and consummation of the Creator's work 339 



CREATOR AM) CREATION. 



GENERAL METHOD. 

The Creator determines the creation. In the order 
of thought and being the Creator, but in the order of 
our knowledge the creation, is prior. Knowledge be- 
gins in experience, but as the Creator never himself 
appears in human experience, if our knowledge must 
be restricted within experience, we of course can 
never know the Creator. At the outset we are thus 
thrown upon the necessity of finding and using an 
organ of knowledge which may carry us beyond all 
that is given in experience, or our very undertaking 
to recognize a Creator, and speculatively contemplate 
the originating of his work, must be an absurdity. 
But in the use of Reason as a distinct organ of tran- 
scendental knowledge, we may consistently attempt 
to attain a knowledge of the Creator ; following which, 
we may also consistently seek to know the work of 
creation in its incipiency, progress, and consumma- 
tion. 

15 



16 GENERAL METHOD. 

The following will thus be our General Method : — 

It will be requisite, in a First Part, to determine 
the extent of Knowledge within Experience ; to rec- 
ognize Reason as competent to carry our knowledge 
beyond experience ; and then by Reason, to attain the 
sure knowledge of a Being who may be an Absolute 
Creator. 

It will then belong to a Second Part to show that 
no one Space and one Time can be determined in 
common for all, without a knowledge of fixed force 
in place, and passing force in period ; to contemplate 
how such distinguishable forces may be originated, and 
by their multiplication and interaction a material Uni- 
verse may be consummated ; and then how the super- 
induction of a life-power may build up all the organ- 
isms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and the 
gift of Reason may elevate the animal to the human. 

The execution of the Plan must necessarily carry 
us up to the highest sphere of speculation ; and yet a 
careful insight will be found adequate to guide our 
way, and take us safely through all the mysteries neces- 
sary to be solved in the adventurous undertaking. 



PART I. 

KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

A logical proof for the Being of God is an im- 
possibility, in the sense that the very attempt to at- 
tain such proof involves a logical absurdity. It would 
be seeking for a primitive syllogism that might prove 
its major proposition. The first syllogism must neces- 
sarily assume its major premise. The being of the 
Creator must precede the being of the created Uni- 
verse, within which all sense-experience must be found 
and all logical data attained ; and hence this proof for 
the being of a Creator cannot come within the circum. 
scription of any logical syllogism. " No man hath seen 
God at any time," nor has any man seen that which 
contains God ; hence the being of God can never be 
distributed in the conclusion of a logical judgment. 

We shall need, in this First Part, three chapters. 

Chap. I. Knowledge limited within Experience. 
" II. Knowledge beyond Experience. 
" III. The carrying out of such knowledge to 
the Being of a Creator. 
2 17 



18 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



CHAPTEE I. 

KNOWLEDGE RESTRICTED TO THAT WHICH IS GAINED 
IN EXPERIENCE. 

Grecian thinking controlled the Ancient Philoso- 
phy. Other processes of thought were foreign, and 
continued separate, or at most were held subsidiary to 
this. The philosophic stem, divided into two main 
branches, flowering in Plato and Aristotle, and which 
at length exhausted themselves, the one in New Pla- 
tonism, and the other in Aristotelian Scholasticism. 
It is not for our purpose important that we here note 
their peculiarities. Much of their spirit appears in 
Modern Philosophy, but it has been by infusion rather 
than genetic propagation, since no seed from either 
branch of the old was a germinating source for the 
vigorous and prolific new shoot. 

Modern Philosophy started in doubting, not for 
the sake of doubt, but that all doubting might be 
excluded from it. Even if amid otherwise universal 
doubt, one thing was indubitable — that there was 
thinking. Philosophy may throw itself upon conscious 
thought for life and deliverance from all doubt. Con- 
scious thinking immediately introduces self-conscious- 
ness, and thus thinking Being, and the test for the 
validity of the being is the clearness of the thought. 



KNOWLEDGE GAINED IN EXPERIENCE. 19 

But the thought of a most perfect Being is a necessity 
as clear as the thought of self, and thus the being 
of God is as indubitable as my own being. As think- 
ing gives spiritual being, so sense gives material be- 
ing, and clear sense-perception must be valid, for the 
most perfect being could not make senses which were 
helplessly deceptive without thereby impeaching his 
perfection. Spirit and matter, thus known, were 
also known as wholly disparate and utterly intercom- 
municable, and their concordant occurrences were re- 
ferred to a " pre-established harmony ; " and all occa- 
sion for interaction was through the Deity, and known 
as " occasional cause." All distinct appearances were 
made modes and attributes of one Absolute Sub- 
stance, in which all further thought was lost, since out 
of this abyss there can be found no emergent traces. 
The absolute substance stood utterly helpless ; it could 
not move and strike, or, if stricken, it could make no 
rebound. 

Philosophy, then necessarily, turned all its thinking 
into the channel of experience. Sense opens to us all 
we know; and Sensationalism, i. e., Empiricism, is the 
source for all possible Human philosophizing. The 
well-known "Essay on the Human Understanding" 
presents the clear outline of the general system. 
Mind is originally destitute of ideas innate or imparted, 
and stands utterly void. Its experience is from two 
sources ; Sensation being an inlet from the outer 
world, and Reflection opening to what passes from 
the mind itself in its own exercises. We thus know 



20 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

material qualities and mental exercises, and can form 
judgments by comparing, abstracting, and combining, 
what is thus given. Reason is no faculty for origi- 
nal knowledge, but for inducing relative ideas and 
deducing concluded judgments. An abstraction of 
extended sensations gives place, and an abstraction 
of limits to place gives pure Space ; and so also an 
abstraction of successive sensations gives period, and 
an abstraction of all limits to period gives pure Time. 
The idea of substance was a riddle, for abstracting 
sense-qualities and exercises leaves only space and 
time, and yet the qualities need the substances to be 
in space and time. Ultimately the idea of Cause in- 
duced a similar perplexity. If denied to be attained 
in some supra-sensible manner, then the ideas of sub- 
stance and cause were necessarily inexplicable as hav- 
ing any reality. Sense gives sequences, and Cause 
supposes a necessity of connection in the sequences, 
and this assumed idea of necessary connection was 
explained as being the factitious result of the fre- 
quent repetition of the experience. Other ideas tran- 
scending experience perplexed the empiricist from 
time to time, and received his solutions as plausi- 
bly as practicable, or else were left as mysteries for 
future elucidations, or as incapable of human cogni- 
tion. 

And here it may be allowed that experience does 
give a common highway of knowledge, in which, for a 
short distance, all walk together. We wake in con- 
sciousness through sensation, and continued percep- 



KNOWLEDGE GAINED IN EXPERIENCE. 21 

tions perpetuate consciousness. Past perceptions may 
be made present recollections, and these may be sub- 
jected in reflection to analysis, comparison, abstrac- 
tion, and connection in judgments and general classi- 
fication; and we may thus have each his sense-world 
ordered and arranged in his own experience, and each 
may say for himself what is, and what has been; but 
when we inquire, Why thus? and seek to know what 
must be, — no perception of sense, nor any logical 
judgment according to sense, can find an answer. All 
is within experience, and there is no organ to look 
through and beyond experience, and thus conscious 
experience itself can have no explanation. No sense 
can perceive how it perceives, and hence there can 
be no possible interpretation of our knowing, nor any 
settling of the validity of that which appears in con- 
scious experience. Yea, the sense alone never seeks 
to rise above itself, and ask a reason for its own being 
and perceiving. That we irrepressibly have such in- 
quiries, and can never be restrained from starting 
them anew after every repulse, and yearn some way 
to get round and over our encountered difficulties in 
knowing truths eternal beyond experience, is an abun- 
dant proof that man has a higher faculty than sense 
and logical judgment ; and that some organ of intelli- 
gence is in humanity that the brute never had; and 
as it rises above sense in its inquiries, so must it be 
competent to go beyond sense in its knowledge, or 
its capacity for inquiring is worse than in vain to it. 
A sense-philosophy cannot satisfy, though such phi- 



22 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

losophy has become nearly all-prevalent. It is in- 
teresting in itself, and for our present purpose neces- 
sary, that we note discriminatingly some of its most 
prominent theories in their variety. 

The notice taken of these theories will best sub- 
serve its purpose, if we disregard the order of time 
in which they were promulgated, and arrange them 
as they in themselves exhibit the promptings of reason 
more manifestly, though their authors recognized no 
distinct Faculty of Reason, except in some of the last 
examples given. 

1. Pure Empiricism in the Positive Philosophy. — 
In the early age, as history opens, it is quite in course 
to find that the observation of the changes and move- 
ments in the world around has induced the convic- 
tion that some power above nature has controlled the 
changes and motions, and that the gods, though keep- 
ing themselves concealed, are the great agents in 
working out the passing events. Their voices are 
heard in the thunder and the earthquake ; tempests 
and pestilences are the expressions of their displeas- 
ure ; and prevalent health, prosperity, and fruitful- 
ness are the results of divine benignity. 

Longer experience, and with closer observation, as- 
signs the powers at work in the material changes to 
some occult efBciences within and about the objects 
themselves, and these secret forces and hidden enti- 
ties in nature are moving the dead matter of the world 
about, and in the directions of their own energy. The 



POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 23 

Tlieologic faith fades out, and then the Metaphysic 
age dawns in human history. Subtle discussions, ab- 
stract reasonings, and ideal speculations, in a thou- 
sand varied and ingenious forms, occupy the attention 
of the strongest minds through long generations. 

But anon the metaphysic age passes as necessarily 
as had the tlieologic ; since sharpened observation had 
attained to clear and positive consciousness of the 
phenomenal world, and the wise have learned to dis- 
criminate between immediate perceptions and fancied 
notions, or fictitious ideals. If these occult notions 
have any real entity, they are beyond human knowl- 
edge, and outside of all conscious experience, and 
science learns to care nothing about them. The 
Positive age is thus a sure occurrence in its time, 
in which the superstitions of the tlieologic and the 
dreaming fictions of the metaphysic age have become 
merged and lost forever, as controlling matters of in- 
terest and attention, in the age of Positivism. The 
sages of humanity have now the grand work, uninter- 
ruptedly, to get and spread the light of positive sci- 
ence ; attaining, arranging, and classifying all that 
comes in to conscious experience. Humanity must 
needs have passed all these stages to the last, and, 
indeed, every individual mind has its theologic, meta- 
physic, and positive period, while in the last only, all 
illusions vanish, and true science prevails. 

The order of procedure in positive science is from 
the simple to the complex, till we reach and make 
clear all the complications of nature and human 



24 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

society. The science of Sociology, in the family, 
the community, and the state, organizing all rela- 
tions and occupations, and overcoming the resist- 
ances of nature, and the selfish inclinations and ani- 
mal passions of the uncultivated races, finally intro- 
duces order, freedom, and social contentment, and 
opens the way to the indefinite development and 
progressive maturity and perfection of the human 
species. 

By a strange personal experience, a religious cul- 
tus was superinduced upon the positive science, 
which it is taught will harmonize all the family of 
man in universal unity, as if Humanity had become 
itself one great Being. The religious age, spontane- 
ous in its devotion, was originally exercised in feti- 
chism, worshipping any rock, tree, or animal that 
fancy proposed. Then polytheism abounded ; fol- 
lowed by monotheism as the mind rose to higher unity, 
till ultimately the true, living, thinking, feeling, lov- 
ing, Humanity is the object and end of all worship ; 
and the greatest names of history, as manifestations 
of humanity, are worthy of a qualified homage. 

Positivism is thus in theory consistent with em- 
piricism, and a consequent of it. It attempts to 
carry out its own adopted dictum, that the human 
mind has no function that can make itself objective 
to itself. Any single sense may as well attempt to 
examine and expound itself, as the entire conscious- 
ness to attempt determining the validity of its reveal- 
ings. And yet with all this consistency in claim and 



POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 25 

theory, its whole procedure evinces the presence 
and perpetual prompting of the function of Reason 
which it so peremptorily discards. If there were 
nothing but elements given in experience and their 
use in reflection, there could be no attempt to over- 
look experience, and determine how much it might 
know. Perception, and judgment according to per- 
ception, would go on just as occasion was given ; but 
from nowhere could come the impulse to examine ex- 
perience, and learn how far the consciousness might 
spread its light. The brute perceives in sense, and 
judges according to sense, as truly, and often as ex- 
actly, as the man; but no animal ever manifested the 
capability or the curiosity to examine his experience, 
and determine the limits of his knowledge. That the 
Positivist is able to so emphatically assert his positiv- 
ism, carries in it a sure evidence that there is work- 
ing in him a higher intelligence than any sense-expe- 
rience can reach. 

And then there is, moreover, his constant assump- 
tion of Necessity and Law in nature, which can come 
from no element attainable in sensation. Experience 
may remember past observations, in the uniform com- 
bination of some qualities and invariable sequence of 
some events, and such order of experience may be 
transferred to an outer world, and called an order 
of nature ; but this would then be only a way that 
nature was seen to have, and not any necessary be- 
hest that nature is forced to obey. Law is more 
than the fact of order ; it is an imposition from a 



26 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

source that binds to order, and is a notion which 
only can flash in from a light that overshines expe- 
rience itself. 

And then Positivism has also its Religion with it& 
cultus of sacred ordinances and ritual ceremonies. 
True in form to its restriction of all knowledge to 
experience, its religion has no higher deity than 
Humanity, and its most sacred shrines are the names 
of the renowned men and women of the ages, to 
whom homages, and festivals, and votive offerings 
are dedicated, and the calendar months are named 
from the most eminent, and the days of the week 
from other illustrious benefactors ; yet even such a 
service could never be assumed as binding itself 
upon human observance, were there not in man a 
deeper claim than any sense can awaken. But be- 
cause social life is itself of the reason, and has its 
rights and duties, it reaches beyond the wants which 
make the cattle herd together, and thus the religion 
Positivism inculcates, born of social ties and sympa- 
thetic claims, would never have been even specula- 
tively instituted, were it not that already in the 
priest and the worshipper there is a spirit seeking 
supernatural communion, and binding bach from all 
finite good to an exhaustless source of eternal good- 
ness. While Positivism knows not its use of the rea- 
son, it still evinces the working of the reason, and 
that it has been deeply quickened and prompted by 
reason. 

With the observed uniformities in experience, and 



POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 27 

these in their connections taken as laws in nature, as 
if they were more than facts found, even as necessi- 
ties imposed, it is true the human mind may accu- 
mulate its observed facts, and physical science may 
sort and classify them endlessly as experience at- 
tains them, while all philosophic inquiry is held in 
abeyance. Yet will not the enterprise of reason be 
ever so satisfied or repressed. The faculty is there, 
though unrecognized, and its living energies will 
prompt speculative inquiries into these uniformities 
and invariable sequences of nature. Science itself 
soon learns that it can make its way with far greater 
facility, when it is helped to a ready anticipation of 
its probable hypotheses by a given direction to the 
course of its inductions. Thus both the spontaneous 
impulses of the faculty, and the wants of science, will 
combine to urge on philosophical investigations ; and 
humanity can never rest in barely perceiving and 
classifying the facts of experience, but must go be- 
yond the positive in seuse, and attempt, at least, to 
know experience as universally and necessarily de- 
termined. The ages will be seeking for the reasons 
why its passing experiences are ever thus, and this 
is nothing other than finding the ultimate truths in 
the insight of reason itself. Reason's insight is the 
last reason for anything, and man is never at rest till 
his clear insight and comprehending oversight sees 
beyond the facts, and finds the facts themselves to be 
reasonable. No matter how positive the man may be 
in the observed order of his facts, and that he has it 



28 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

as the long experience of ages has given it ; he wants 
to know the long order, not merely as positive fact, 
but as imposed law ; and even the positivist himself 
talks freely of the laws of nature, and the obligations 
of society ; for no man's speech can satisfy his inward 
conviction, which does not carry in it the meaning, 
that there are a priori bonds on all the facts of na- 
ture and communings of society. 

It might thus have been anticipated, just as it oc- 
curs, that the reason should thrust up its irrepressible 
inquiries, and in ignorance of the source from whence 
the asking comes, the mind should set some lower 
faculty to the task of finding an answer. The sense 
and logical understanding are set to solve the prob- 
lems the reason propounds, and which will really 
amount to nothing else than asking reasons for a fact, 
and then giving another fact in answer. Experience 
cannot ask for itself, why itself is so : the reason 
makes the demand, and experience can as little 
answer as inquire to any purpose. When it has 
given one fact to explain others, which must be its 
only way, there is still the same thing to be gone 
over. The reason can never stand on any last fact, 
and cease her inquiries. She must get above the 
fact, and see through the fact a transcendental prin- 
ciple, and no empirical answer can be other than illu- 
sory. And yet, notwithstanding the manifest absur- 
dity of attaining any end in such a process, we shall 
constantly find modern philosophy very largely at 
work in the interpretation of experience by experi- 



EMPIRICISM BY LAWS OP ASSOCIATION. 29 

enco, and striving to grow wise, or at least evince its 
love of wisdom, by pushing the mystery of one fact 
back into another, till the remoteness quenches all 
further curiosity. The Positive Philosophy can never 
be truly positive, and attain and keep a fixed posi- 
tion, except by a perpetual delusion. 

2. Empiricism as expounded by the Laws of 
Association. — While Positivism seeks to repress all 
attempts at explaining why nature has her uniformi- 
ties, and holds it enough to take experience as it is, 
and by careful study make the most of it, there have 
not been wanting other theories for accounting why 
experience is so orderly, even while admitting and 
strenuously teaching that our knowledge cannot 
transcend the sense-consciousness within which all 
experience must be. Assuming a Divine power out 
of and over all experience, it might be held as it 
variously had been, that this outside power did all the 
work of arranging, either by occasional interposi- 
tions, or by a pre-established harmony, or in an ori- 
ginal Divine Constitution ; while others dispensed with 
any outside agency, and said nature must have some 
relations, and as well those according with our own 
experience as any other, and we need only to con- 
sider all things as a " fortuitous concurrence ; " and 
still others, admitting the present mystery, proposed 
in all humility, from imbecility of faculties, to lie still 
and wait for future disclosures. All explanation was 
arbitrary, or fortuitous, or hopelessly impossible. 



30 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

An independent and acute scrutiny ascertained the 
impossibility of determining the necessary connec- 
tions of cause and effect in experience, by any knowl- 
edge gained by experience. The sole purpose of 
any inquiry must be, not to know any such determined 
connections, but to explain why the human mind 
comes to deem the sequences in cause and effect to be 
necessarily connected. And the short statement of 
the explanation is the force of Habit. We find cer- 
tain sequences occurring so frequently in the same 
order, experience has them so often and for so long a 
time, that, although no connecting, link comes with- 
in sensation, yet the frequent repetition induces an 
idea or semblance of such link, and this becomes a 
belief, a confirmed conviction, that there is such in- 
terlinking, and all originating in habit. The common- 
sense conviction, in this way, of the laws of experi- 
ence, becomes so controlling that no testimony of their 
miraculous violation ought to influence us. But such 
strength of conviction was only subjective seeming, 
and not at all any known necessity in objective being. 
This the clear-sighted philosopher well knew, and on 
it was built, with logical consistency, an impregnable 
scepticism. Experie ce can account for the common 
conviction that the connections in nature are neces- 
sary, but no judgment inexperience can possibly show 
any validity for the conviction that there is any such 
necessary connection. All reasoning from the connec- 
tions of cause and effect rest only upon the illusion 



EMPIRICISM BY LAWS OP ASSOCIATION. 31 

of habit, and never can be the confirmation of truth 
and knowledge. 

And now, closely allied to this, and indeed almost 
a carrying out of the same theory a little more cir- 
cumstantially and minutely, is that above announced 
as resting upon the law of Association. There is the 
same limiting of knowledge to experience, and in con- 
sistency with this, expounding our convictions of an 
outer world and its connections, and our assent to all 
necessary truths, on a similar subjective basis a little 
more completely worked out and systematically ar- 
ranged. This theory assumes that past sensations 
afford the sufficient occasion for expecting future sen- 
sations in certain conditions, and that the order of 
past experience becomes a law of association by which 
the expected future sensations in experience are 
regulated. The law of association is described in the 
various forms that former experiences have deter- 
mined for it, and these forms of applying the law of 
association sufficiently account for our belief of an 
external world, and its orderly arrangement in con- 
scious experience, though we can have no knowledge 
that such outer world is in existence. 

Thus any one may say of himself: A little reflec- 
tion teaches me that my current fleeting sensations 
are of little account in my conception of the existing 
world around me, but that there are possible sensa- 
tions of innumerable variety, which under supposable 
conditions I deem I could at this moment experience, 
and it is to these possible sensations that I am obliged 



32 KMOWLEDGB OF A CREATOR. 

to turn, as important in awaking me to the concep- 
tion of an outer world. My actual sensations are 
transient, while these possibilities of sensations are 
permanent ; and in giving to them distinctive names, 
they come to be apprehended as distinctive things. 
In any group of such possible sensations I have asso- 
ciated the whole from some one that was an element 
in a former group of actual sensations, and this asso- 
ciative process has furnished the connections in all 
the qualities of the thing, and from a natural forget- 
fulness of the associative process, the thing is taken 
as having these fixed connections from necessit}\ 
These abiding things, therefore, and not the transient 
sensations, I associate in fixed orders of succession, 
just as I have found my transient sensations succeed- 
ing each other, and it is to these permanent possibili- 
ties of sensations that, in the obliviscence of the 
association, I apply my conviction of necessary con- 
nection as cause and effect, and thereby make up my 
world from these connected possibilities of sensations. 
I can, at will, withdraw myself from the transient 
sensations that have been given me, by closing my 
senses, or turning the organ another way, but I can- 
not put from me these permanent possibilities of sen- 
sations at will, since I deem them to be abiding 
through all my changes. 

I find others, moreover, manifesting their appre- 
hension, not of their transient sensations, but of these 
permanent possibilities of sensations, as if their ex- 
perience in this were in common with mine. In this 



KMPmiCISM BY LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 33 

way there is for me, and for others in common with 
me, a world of possibilities of sensations connected 
according to laws, and which must so be taken by me 
as a world existing external to me and others. The 
actual sensations of the city of Calcutta must, in any 
case, be fleeting, but the permanent possibilities of 
seusation, on condition of my sailing up the Hoogly 
by daylight, must be my existing Calcutta, ordered 
and arranged according to applied laws of association 
for me and others. Matter, therefore, is to be taken 
as a permanent possibility of sensations, as it exists 
in our consciousness; and such material world we 
may know, and believe to be real, but no other world 
can be our world of experience. The permanent 
possibilities of sensations outlast all our changes, 
and will be for others when we are gone, just as 
they are now for other beings in common with our- 
selves. 

And as with the organic senses for matter, so 
with the inner sense for mind. The inner exer- 
cises may all in common be termed feelings, as 
they affect the consciousness ; and the actual feel- 
ings, like the actual sensations, are transient, and 
little to be regarded as making up the known mental 
world; but the permanent possibilities of feelings 
must make up what I know as m} 7 one perduring 
mind. The one capacity for permanent possibilities 
of feeling which may continue through ■ reverie, or 
fainting, or sleep, or bodily dissolution, is what must 
be known as the perpetuation of myself. There are 
3 



34 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

some differences to be noticed between permanent 
possibilities of sensations and permanent possibilities 
of feelings, among which the most important is, that 
the former are possibilities to others as well as to 
myself, but the latter are a series of possibilities in 
my life to myself alone. But this permanency, as 
myself, may be determined as existing in other series 
of possible feeling, as otherselves also. Other figures 
of seeing and speaking possibilities I know, as I know 
my own seeing and speaking body ; and I am con- 
scious of modified bodily states followed by feelings, 
and these again followed by some outward conduct in 
myself. Now, the first as peculiar state of body, and 
the last as peculiar conduct, I cannot connect in my- 
self except as through the intermediate feelings. My 
body is naked, and I put on clothes ; my stomach is 
empty, and I take food ; but I connect the first two by 
the feeling of cold, and the last two by the feeling of 
hunger, only in my consciousness. I get, in the ob-. 
servation of other seeing and speaking figures, the 
first and the last, but I do not get their intermediate 
feeling to connect them. Still, as I know their state 
of body and subsequent conduct to be as mine to- 
gether, I legitimately infer the middle link of feeling 
to be present, and connect the two in them, as it does 
and must in me, and thus that they are sentient beings 
as I am. They have bodies as mine, exhibit acts sig- 
nificant as mine, which indicate feeling as mine, and 
thus that they are otherselves as I am myself. So it 
is competent for me to know other series of feelings 



EMPIRICISM BY LAWS OP ASSOCIATION. 35 

than my own ; to know even a series that is super- 
human or divine, from knowing manifestations of 
superhuman or divine thought and feeling. I may con- 
ceive a thread of consciousness perpetuated through 
an unending series, and believe in an immortality. 
Mind, as a series of feelings, with the background of 
perpetuated possibilities of feeling, is, therefore, an 
object for our subjective consciousness, though we 
may not be able, and truly are not competent, to know 
such a world of spiritual beings actually existing. 

But there is one part of this knowledge, in subjec- 
tive experience, which the philosophy itself admits to 
be wholly inscrutable by any experience. I remem- 
ber the past parts of the series ; I may expect future 
parts ; and thus the one myself is in all the series, 
past, present, and future. The mental series is in this 
peculiar. The material series is known only by others 
than itself, even by the mental, and by that alone ; 
but the mental has its own thread of consciousness 
throughout, as a series which is aware of itself. Here, 
it is honestly recognized, that the theory faces an in- 
explicable mystery ; since it canuot be expounded to 
experience, how a past fact and a future fact can at 
once be a present fact. And here, the determining 
of a series, that shall know both its past and future to 
belong to a present self, is ingenuously left outside 
the theory, waiting some other means of solution. 

But this law of association is made to reach much 
further, and mediate a knowledge beyond the experi- 
ence of matter and of mind as given in the fact of 



36 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

consciousness, even to the determining of intuitive 
knowledge in mathematics. The necessary truth of 
geometrical axioms and demonstrations is made to be 
a matter of experience, through the medium of associ- 
ation. And just as we did let slip the consciousness 
of the associative process, in the connection of the 
sensations in substances and attributes, causes and 
effects, and deemed thus the connections to be neces- 
sary and immediately known, so also in our oblivis- 
cence of our associations from experience in mathe- 
matical truths, do we deem their relations to be neces- 
sary, and our apprehensions of them immediate intui- 
tions. Thus we have found, invariabl} 7 , that two things 
put together with two other things have made four 
things, and in the expectation of any future process 
of so putting two and two things together, we over- 
look the association of it from our past experience, 
and then think that we immediately see the two and 
two things together to be four things. The knowl- 
edge that two and two make four is from no known 
necessity in the case, nor any intuition of a universal 
truth ; but only from association through former ex- 
perience, which associative process we overlook, and 
deem the relation between the two and two and the 
four to be an immediate intuition. If when two and two 
things had been put together in our past experience, 
there had always been, by some jugglery or miracle, 
another thing secretly interposed, so that the sum- 
ming np should have been five, then would the 
associative process have been accordingly in our 



EMPIRICISM BY LAWS OP ASSOCIATION. 37 

anticipated future additions of two and two, and 
passing the association we should have acquired the 
mathematical intuition that two and two are five. 

So again, our invariable experience has been, that 
on round bodies becoming cubes, they have ceased to 
be round, and that cubes becoming round, they have 
ceased to be cubes; or when bounded by straight lines, 
the invariable experience has been that more than 
two lines have been needed to make out the complete 
limitation ; and hence the association froru such expe- 
rience puts the permanent possibilities of sensation 
after the same form, and letting fall from conscious- 
ness the association, we deem it to be an intuition, 
that there cannot be cubical spheres, nor spherical 
cubes, nor cau two straight lines euclose a space. 
If our two eyes had been made invariably to give a 
cube with a sphere and a sphere with a cube, by 
some double vision in the consciousness ; or had we 
never known two straight lines but as they appear 
together on a railroad track, when perspectively they 
approach each other on opposite sides of us; we should 
then have intuitively known that a cube must also be 
a sphere, and a sphere a cube, and that two straight 
lines must always enclose a space. The determining 
rule is the order of association according to former 
experience, and the permanent possibilities of sensa- 
tions take on the same order, and passing over the 
association, we have left to us the supposed immedi- 
ate intuition. 

And now this is very ingeniously wrought out, 



38 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

strictly in accordance with the psychology that 
knowledge is limited by experience. It is no reproach 
to the philosophy, that the externality and necessity 
of the uniform order of the objects of experience are 
only a subjective seeming, and no possible knowing ; 
nor is it any conviction of logical absurdity to show, 
that such laws of nature in experience would be only 
laws of mental association, and that the other men 
here are only other as men are in our dreams, and 
their manifestation of similar feelings and convictions 
with ours is only a doubling of the subjective seem- 
ing, as when we might dream others were dreaming 
as we dream ; for all this is understood from the start ; 
and since the human mind cannot push its knowledge 
beyond what is given in conscious sensation, the entire 
credit which the philosopher asks should be accorded 
to him is, not that he has shown there is any outer 
world, but how experience may seem to be outward, 
and orderly arranged ; and that he has done this logi- 
cally, from the data given in experience alone. 

But the deep reproof to be applied to the philoso- 
phy is from another quarter. The inquiry it has 
made, and so logically answered, is what the rational 
mind cares nothing about. The whole business is a 
delusive play with fictions. The only inquiry made 
is, Why does our world of experience seem external 
and orderly connected? And the answer given is, 
That there are associations naturally, and even neces- 
sarily, generated by the order of our transient sensa- 
tions, which inevitably induce such seeming. But 



PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 39 

i 

when we admit all this, it is still of no interest to the 
philosophic mind. That asks yet, as from the first, 
Why this order of the primitive transient sensations, 
which has determined the association in the perma- 
nent possibilities of sensations? May there not here 
be an insight to an outer and orderly material world? 
Reason stands knocking at this door, and cannot be 
deluded into any interest with the logic that may 
seem to be pleasing itself about any mere seeming. 
It will wait here till this door opens. 

3. Empiricism in the Philosophy of Common 
Sense. — The Philosophy of Common Sense restricts 
all human knowledge to the elements given in con- 
scious experience ; yet in some of its varied theories 
it assumes much that stands out quite beyond all 
experience, and applies these universal truths in dif- 
ferent ways to relieve itself as it may from the dif- 
ficulties it encounters. At its inception, it rested 
mainly in the assumption that consciousness was 
valid and its testimony final, and consistently at- 
tempted by no speculation to go back of conscious- 
ness to find any confirmation for it. It sufficed it to 
say, that all scepticism must appeal to consciousness 
for the affirmation of its doubts, and if this were not 
valid, then its facts of doubting were as insecure as 
any facts immediately affirmed. Some sense may be 
so conditioned at times as to delude, but this would 
be corrected by other senses ; and some persons may 
be deceived in their experiences, but the normal ex- 



40 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

perience of the many will prevailingly control ; and 
the collected, unbiassed decision of common experi- 
ence must be the ultimate criterion of truth. Com- 
mon consciousness,- and logical judgments from the 
facts of consciousness, cover the entire field of our 
knowledge. 

Further reflection modified these assumptions of 
the validity of the facts immediately given in con- 
sciousness. It came generally to be admitted that 
all the senses did not alike give immediate knowl- 
edge of an outer world. Temperature and taste, 
odors and sounds, are rather feelings within us than 
any attributes of things without us, and are primari- 
ly our sensations, and only secondarily the qualities 
of matter. The sense of vision and of touch were 
held more directly to give the attributes of outer 
things, and from them it was assumed that we at- 
tained immediately the primary qualities of the ma- 
terial world. And yet, in these two senses, there 
came to be recognized quite a difference in the di- 
rectness of their knowledge. The nervous network 
of the organs of vision and of touch were taken as 
thoroughly interpenetrated and suffused by the liv- 
ing intelligent spirit, and here in the nerves, it was 
assumed, spirit and matter came physiologically in 
unity. Any impression on the organic nerve was 
thus held to be in immediate communication with 
spirit, and here the matter in contact was supposed 
to give over its essential attributes directly to the 
spirit's intelligence. And yet close reflection found 



PHILOSOPHY OP COMMON SENSE. 41 

color in vision to come from outer things through the 
medium of light, and must thus be a primary quality 
of the light rather than of the illuminated body. Ex- 
tension was in the color, and from the light; and we 
could not thus attain directly the shapes of things, 
and only the shapes of colors which the light brings 
from the things. Two persons together do not see 
the same object in their vision of the sun, or a star; 
nor indeed do the two eyes of the same person see 
together the same thing; the two only see different 
mediate rays of light from the same thing. 

The primary qualities of the real thing, it thus 
comes to be admitted, must be sought solely from 
touch ; since only in the contact of the organ with 
the thing, can we immediately have its primary qual- 
ity given over to the sense. Solidity was thus held 
to be a primary quality of matter, intrinsically in its 
essence, and given to the consciousness in the expe- 
rience of its impenetrability by contact, and measured 
in amount by the comparative degrees of resistance. 
Extension also belongs to matter essentially, and is 
given over to the sense in touch, and measured by 
the extended nerve in the organ affected, relatively 
to other portions of the living body, in various ways 
of contact, as by the grasp of the hand, the sliding 
of the finger, or the sweep of the arm. The exter- 
nality of matter was also deemed to be immediately 
attained by touch ; but its outness was admitted as 
rather a relation between matter and mind, than a 
primary attribute of the matter itself. Thus common 



42 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

sense was held to have matter face to face, and im- 
mediately to take these primary qualities from it into 
consciousness. The secondary qualities were allowed 
to be only affections in us, and to give to the con- 
sciousness only the mode in which outer things in 
indirect ways affected our organs. 

It might well be objected to any such theory of 
intuitive knowledge of matter, that the supposed 
extended spirit, in the extended nerve-organism, does 
not know any extension except in the affection. The 
eye has no knowledge of the expanded retina, except 
as the retina has its content for color ; nor does the 
hand know extension, nor solidity, till first the im- 
pressed nerve has its sensation. The spirit does not 
know extension because it is diffused, as supposed, 
through an extended network of nerve-fibres. The 
nerve is still between the outer matter and the mind, 
and it is the affection of the nerve only that the mind 
gets. 

The true answer, however, to such a theory of im- 
mediate knowledge by touch, is a direct denial. The 
thing in contact with the living nerve does not put 
over any part or attribute of itself into the nerve, 
and through that into the consciousness ; it can only 
affect the living nerve, and become a sensation ; and 
the quality of the thing is only the way in which 
it has qualified our sense, and not that any element 
of the thing has been immediately imparted. The 
claim that we immediately know its externality is an 
affirmation of its complete outness still, and that we 



PHILOSOPHY OP COMMON SENSE. 43 

only know it in the affection produced. The most 
that may be said is, we know the without by what is 
within;, the thing by the sensation ; and this can be 
no immediate knowledge. Even in contact, the whole 
thing is outside, and the affection only is given with- 
in, and the outer can only be known through the 
medium of the inner. Herein is no intuitive knowl- 
edge by touch, any more than by any other organ- 
All sense-intuition is the putting of the affection and 
the intellect face to face in the consciousness, and 
not the thing and the intellect face to face as object 
and subject. The insight of reason reads the true 
meaning of the sense-symbols, and knows the thing 
in the symbol, and can intelligently expound the pri- 
mary qualities of extension and solidity ; but the 
sense without the reason-function knows nothing be- 
yond the quality, whether in touch or any other 
organ. 

But even with this assumption of immediate sense- 
knowing, the common sense was helpless to connect 
the qualities in any ordered experience, and fix the 
objects in any necessary connections, and know na- 
ture as a universe. The appearances come within, 
and flit over the field of consciousness, as the cloud- 
shadows chase each other over the landscape, and no 
sense-faculty can find any determining medium for 
connecting them in the order of their coming and 
departing. To meet this exigency, there has been 
the assumption of a higher sense-faculty than any 
organic perceiving, and the affirming the human 



44 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

mind to have an original constitutional endowment 
for apprehending the connections of sense-experi- 
ences. Like the organic senses, this higher sense is 
incompetent to overlook and comprehend itself, and 
expound its mode of knowing, and its most confident 
convictions are simply inexplicable mysteries, as if 
they were inspired revelations ; but the universal 
consent, in this common constitutional taking of uni- 
form combinations and sequences in experience as 
necessarily connected, is assumed to be as safe a 
reliance as the direct testimony of consciousness. 
This is expressed in the various ways of " primitive 
belief," " universal assent," " dictates of common 
sense," in this eminent signification of a sense above 
organic perceiving ; and by this higher form of as- 
sumed sense-apprehension, they attain their remedy 
for admitted organic deficiencies. Such assumed 
higher sense is a common endowment of humanity ; 
and this may be cultivated to attain such judgments 
as follows : All objects of perception must be in 
space and time ; qualities must have their substance, 
and events must have their cause ; like qualities and 
events must have like substances and causes ; na- 
ture's changes must be in orderly successions, and 
she can gain nothing new, and lose nothing old; and 
others like to these. 

But such assumption, of some mysteriously work- 
ing-sense, is only the manifestation of the distinctive 
working of reason which has not been recognized by 
them, and for whose legitimate insight they have 



PHILOSOPHY OF COMMON SENSE. 45 

ignorantly substituted a fictitious foresight of proph- 
ecy. The assumed Seer has a new sense opened 
for these higher communications, and all inexplicable 
and mysterious as they are, we come to put our faith 
in these revealings of truth beyond ordinary percep- 
tions in consciousness, and trust the surreptitious 
connections as giving to experience an orderly and 
necessary stability and uniformity. The whole is a 
mere fictitious psychological invention. 

There is yet a further method, when it is found 
that the human mind cannot rise in its knowledge 
above the relations given in experience, to open, by 
a logical process, a way for the exercise of faith, and 
therein to carry human belief quite beyond the pos- 
sibilities of human knowledge. We may ascend in 
our judgments from the conditioned to a conditioner, 
or determining condition, and this in an indefinite 
process, but can never reach an ultimate condition 
which has no determiner. And now this " law of the 
conditioned " is subjected to such logical process, and 
in the following form, for the admission of faith be- 
yond knowledge. There may be two contradictory 
propositions, neither of Avhich can be conceived as 
true, and yet as contradictory opposites, from the 
logical law of the excluded middle, one of them 
must be true ; and then on the ground of such a 
conclusion, we may believe that to be true which 
can neither bo known nor conceived. And this is 
specially applied to two supersensible truths, the 



46 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



connections of nature into a universal whole ; and 
the Being of a God above nature. 

Of the connections of cause and effect into one 
nature of things, we may so form a logical argument. 
Of any perceived phenomenon just occurred, we can- 
not conceive that it did not previously exist in some 
form. But we can neither conceive of its beginning 
with time, and thus to include absolutely all time, nor 
that it had no beginning, and thus runs back through 
infinite time. Such is the impotence of human 
thought. But a beginning with time and a non-begin- 
ning with time are contradictory opposites ; and we 
must conclude of this phenomenon, that it has either 
beginning or non-beginning. Both cannot be true, 
but one must ; we cannot conceive of either, nor 
possibly know either ; yet we must believe one or 
the other to be true. Our faith here may, and even 
must, run beyond all thought and knowledge. We 
may thus believe in the necessary and universal con- 
nections of cause and effect. 

And so in reference to the being of an Infinite and 
Absolute Deity. We may say of his omniscience, 
that it must require a mode of knowing that takes 
in all the connections of universal nature, but we 
cannot conceive it either as running through the in- 
finite successive changes, or as compassing the in- 
finite successions all at once. The first is the Infinite, 
the last is the Absolute, and both alike unthinkable 
and unknowable ; and yet by the logical law for con- 
tradictory opposites, as above, while both together 



FORCE FROM MUSCULAR PRESSURE. 47 

cannot be, one of them must be. Our faculties are 
too limited to think or to know in this sphere, but 
logic opens it for human faith to enter. We must 
believe that the Being who knows the universe is 
either an Infinite or an Absolute Being, though he 
cannot be both ; and our faith cannot find on which 
to fix. 

In these forms the philosophy of Common Sense 
exhausts all its expedients. It first assumes con- 
sciousness to be valid and sufficient in the aggre- 
gate of the senses; then restricts immediate knowl- 
edge of the outer world to vision, and more specially 
to touch ; then imagines a fictitious, inspired, and 
prophetic sense, that forecasts the successions of 
nature ; and lastly, by logic, supports a faith that 
can rest on no thought, and can guide itself to a 
specific object by no possible reason. The whole 
absurdity and contradiction, in which this form of 
philosophizing ever issues, is from limiting all knowl- 
edge to what is given in experience. The unac- 
knowledged faculty of reason they have, and it 
prompts them to get speculative truth ; but they 
put the lower faculties of sense and logic to the 
vain task of solving the questionings of reason, and 
of course in. their neglect of reason the issue is folly. 

4. Experience of Force given in Muscular Pres- 
sure. — This is a philosophy which begins in experi- 
ence, and affirms that all beyond experience is un- 
knowable, and yet assumes to know very far beyond 



48 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

that which sense, and all logical deduction from it, 
could ever acquire. It is thus unwittingly using the 
Organ of Reason without giving credit for it. Its 
prime dicta are, that to think is to distinguish and 
find relations ; and thought can be conversant legiti- 
mately only with that which is relative ; while the 
Infinite and the Absolute must to man be ever un- 
knowable. The theory may be given in the nar- 
rowest compass as follows : — 

The ongoing of nature is a process of evolution, 
the law of which is progression from the homogene- 
ous to the heterogeneous, yet perpetually making 
the heterogeneous more and more definite and co- 
herent. This is effected through continuous differen- 
tiations and disintegrations. An indefinite number 
of homogeneous molecules in mass will differentiate 
and disintegrate, and the mass become more heter- 
ogeneous in its portions ; and yet these heterogeneous 
portions will become more and more definite and co- 
herent, till the mass of star-mist shall become sun and 
system. 

The explanation of this evolution may. be thus 
given, in the closest outline. Passing the other 
senses and their given perceptions, even that of 
vision and its colored extensions, the sense of touch 
is taken ; and this not as tactual merely, whereby tem- 
perature may be attained, but as muscular pressure 
apprehending resistance. The muscles press and are 
pressed, in which we become conscious of co-existent 
resistances. Pressure with counter-pressure, at a given 



FORCE FROM MUSCULAR PRESSURE. 49 

point, determines a position ; through continuous posi- 
tions, determines a line ; through contiguous positions, 
a surface ; and through surfaces in all directions, a 
solid. The correlation of muscular energy and equiv- 
alent resistance gives the knowledge of Force. The 
muscular tension is in consciousness ; the co-existent 
resistances come into the consciousness; and then 
these correlations of resistance are known as the mat- 
ter touching and touched, and which essentially is 
Force^and immediately known in conscious experience. 
The force is not in the matter, the force is the matter. 
Abstract the force, and Space remains ; the matter 
and the space differ, only as positions with and posi- 
tions without co-existing resistance differ. Matter is 
extended and resistant, and the resistance as solidity 
is the primary attribute. Space is extended and 
non-resistant, and extension is the primary attribute. 
When the resisting positions are given successively 
in an order of sequence not reversible, Ave know the 
occurrences to have a fixed series ; and an abstrac- 
tion of the successive resistances leaves Time in 
the consciousness. Succession with non-resistance is 
Time. The change of matter through contiguous 
positions in successive moments is Motion ; and thus 
matter, space, and time are conjointly conditional for 
motion. The primary knowledge of motion is in the 
conscious change of position of our own muscles, and 
we mature this knowledge of motion when there is 
no muscular pressure, by at once cognizing the con- 
currence of space and time with the movement. 
4 



50 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

Force is in this the deepest element, change of posi- 
tion the next, and the concurrences of space and time 
complete the complex cognition. Matter and Motion 
are concretes ; Space and Time are abstracts. 

Relative Space and Time is that which stands re- 
lated to the matter in space and time, or which may 
have been abstracted from space and time ; and the 
relative space and time are, thus, the forms of force, 
or matter. Absolute Space and Time is that vague 
notion of space and time, nascent in consciousness, 
as lying beyond all limits of relative space and time. 
The question is asked, Is the Absolute Space or the 
Absolute Time a form from some absolute exist- 
ence? which question is affirmed to be unanswer- 
able. And so also Relative Force is that which 
relates immediately to the experience of muscular 
energy. Absolute Force is that vague notion of 
force, nascent in consciousness, which is beyond all 
limited co-resistance to muscular pressure. The be- 
ing of Absolute Force, it is argued, is demanded from 
the persistence of consciousness itself. Persistence 
in consciousness is the criterion of reality ; and we 
always rest satisfied that the thing is real, which, 
in appropriate conditions, persists in consciousness. 
Muscular pressure is not permanently persistent, and 
consciousness itself persists only as changing ap- 
pearances take place in consciousness. The purely 
simple, having no changes, could awaken no con- 
sciousness. When, then, muscular pressure with its 
co-resistance ceases, and all relative force is absent, 






FORCE FROM MUSCULAR PRESSURE. 51 

consciousness itself must cease. But consciousness 
is persistent in the absence of muscular pressure 
and its co-resistance, for which sake, from the very- 
nature of consciousness, a persistent absolute force 
must be present. This is a priori postulated for the 
persistence of consciousness itself; and it is the 
proud boast of this philosophy, that such postulate 
has been found by it to be a logical necessity for the 
continuance of consciousness. This persistent Ab- 
solute Force is thus affirmed to stand in its truth 
" deeper than demonstration ; deeper than definite 
cognition ; deep as the very nature of mind. The 
sole truth which transcends experience by underly- 
ing it, is the persistence of Force." " To this an 
ultimate analysis brings us down, and from this a 
rational synthesis must build up." 

In this persistent absolute force we have the in- 
destructibility of matter, and the necessity for con- 
tinuous movement. The force is matter, and can 
be conceived as neither beginning nor ending, nor 
ceasing from evolution ; and here is the basis for a 
synthesis, as experience may find that the system 
of nature has been ordered. Absolute force is that 
universal force in which all changes and conversions 
of forces occur, and in which all is conserved and 
held in correlation. Matter is convertible into other 
matter, into spirit, and then again from spirit back 
into matter ; and the universe of matter and mind is 
but this universal correlative and persistent Force. 
A given series may illustrate the perpetual conver- 



52 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

sions of force everywhere occurring. The moving 
force which swings the iron-tongue, and strikes the 
ringing chimes, is converted to the vibrations of the 
bell ; thence into undulations of the air ; and thence 
into sound in the ear ; and here the force is spiritual- 
ized into tune in the intellect, and then emotion in 
the sensibility, and then to some executive impulse 
in volition ; and now becomes converted into organic 
movement, as irritated nerve, and contracted muscle, 
and tension of sinews, and leverage of bones ; and 
thence goes out again in its endless round of cor- 
relative pressure through material changes. The 
myriad-sided movement is everywhere the pushed 
and pushing conversions and successions of recip- 
rocal and equivalent forces ; and nothing new comes 
in, and nothing old drops out of the one Absolute 
Force. That is the ultimate of all analysis, and if 
there be anywhere, in or out, an originating Per- 
sonality, he must to man be unknowable. 

Of this entire speculation, it is important to note 
that, with no higher faculty than it recognizes, it 
would never have been attempted, and could never 
have been accomplished. Experience never attains 
force ; and sense-consciousness has neither interest 
nor capability to determine what may be the con- 
ditions of its own persistent bejng. Muscular exten- 
sion may push and be pushed in expei-ieuce, and in 
every instance nervous irritability may have its pecu- 
liar sensation ; but with no insight of reason the pecu- 
liar sensation is all that is brought within conscious- 



FORCE FROM MUSCULAR PRESSURE. 53 

ness, and never the force that conditioned the conscious 
sensation. An appetitive impulse or a rational im- 
perative may consciously have prompted the muscular 
tensions ; but the feeling we have of these prompting 
activities is but the footprint of the spiritual force, 
which in darkness has previously passed onward. 
The force itself from appetite or obligation never 
comes into consciousness. The insight of reason into 
the facts of consciousness first gets the forces which 
give meaning to the facts. 

Even if it were possible to attain force from the 
experience of muscular pressure, we have no experi- 
ence which could give persistent absolute force. And 
if experience teaches that consciousness is persistent 
only as changes persistently go on within it, still not 
consciousness, but a higher authorit} 7 , must determine 
for us that these persistent changes were necessary 
conditions for the consciousness, and that an absolute 
force was necessary for the changes. 

And then, again, even if we had the recognition of 
absolute force, and its conservation, or persistency, 
and that all particular forces are correlative ; What use 
could we make of it in any philosophy which is to de- 
termine the orderly development of nature in expe- 
rience ? We cannot say whether the absolute force 
is personal or not, nor whether itself is the product 
of personal intelligence and will ; all we know is a 
continual maze of reciprocal pushings and pullings, 
converting themselves from one form to another, and 
we can only watch and classify the changes as we 



54 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



may m experience, with nothing to determine whence 
they come or whither they are tending. "We may 
call the movement an " evolution," and say that expe- 
rience finds it to proceed from " the homogeneous to 
the heterogeneous " in ever widening multiplications, 
but we can cognize nothing of an involving that deter- 
mines the assumed evolving. The philosophy, even 
with this surreptitiously assumed force, can only ex- 
pect the future from the past, with no insight of what 
force itself is, which may help us to determine why 
the past has so been, or how the future must be. 
The upshot of all is still fact in experience, with no 
possible explanation of the fact ; and no rational 
mind can satisfy itself by it. Reason must in phe- 
nomenal fact see the force, and what the force itself 
is, and in this it may expound the mechanics of mat- 
ter, the spontaneities of organic life, and find a pas- 
sage out beyond to the supernatural. 



5. The Critical Philosophy. — It is peculiar to 
any mathematical judgment that a diagram may be 
constructed of pure points or lines, which shall pre- 
sent the truth intended as an immediate intuition in 
the diagram itself; and this truth in one diagram will 
be the same truth as universal for all diagrams of 
accordant constructed form. Thus I describe a line 
from one point to another, and at once in this I can 
see that the straight line is " the shortest " line that 
can be drawn between those points. And but this 
one diagram is needed to see from it that the same 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 55 

must be true of all .straight lines universally that may- 
be drawn between any two points. And as in this, 
so is intuition in all mathematical axioms and demon- 
strations. The new predicate to be attained, which 
in the case above is " the shortest," is seen from the 
diagram, and only needs to be put in the form of a 
judgment. 

But in a philosophical judgment the case is the 
opposite. I say, all qualities must have substance ; 
all events must have cause; and yet I can make no 
construction that will express the new predicate of 
substance or of cause, and cannot, thus, intuitively 
see the substance connecting the qualities, and the 
cause connecting the events, and thereby judge that 
they must universally so connect the qualities and 
the events. And yet, destitute of such capability of 
intuition, we are perpetually affirming, in philosophi- 
cal judgments as in mathematical, the conviction of 
universal truths. But when required to justify our 
philosophical universal judgments we find much diffi- 
culty. We cannot put them face to face with us as 
we do in the diagrams of geometry, and hence Ave 
cannot see how we get our new notions of substances 
and causes, nor how we may validly make universal 
predicates of them. This attained conviction that no 
consciousness, pure or empirical, could bring sub- 
stance and cause to appear within it, and consequent- 
ly, by no possibility, could the intuition give any 
necessary and universal connections of qualities and 
events in or by the substances and causes, opened at 



56 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

once a wide door for scepticism in both philosophy 
and religion, and no efforts of empiricism could possi- 
bly close it. The Critical Philosophy, altogether the 
most remarkable of our age, started at just this point, 
and made it the burden of inquiry, " How are syn- 
thetic Judgments a priori possible?" 

The " synthetic Judgment a priori " was the above 
philosophical Judgment as distinct from the mathe- 
matical, and the inquiry involved the necessity for a 
searching analysis of the entire process of knowing, 
that we might thereby attain to a knowledge of how 
we know. All such systems as we have heretofore 
been examining were miserably partial and superficial, 
compared with the profound speculations of the Crit- 
ical Philosophy. The mode of knowing must regulate 
the objects known : and in this way was attained what 
could come in to human consciousness, and how this 
could be ordered in human experience. The analysis 
took the human intelligence as it is, and found its 
highest capacities and functions. 

The Sense was found as capacity for receiving 
affections which must from somewhere be given; and 
that primitively it has the two forms of Space and 
Time, as inclusive of its capacity for a universal re- 
ceptivity. This merely envisaged, or put its content 
face to face with the consciousness, and as thus fac- 
ulty for immediately representing gave its objects as 
Intuitions. 

These sense-intuitions were then found to be given 
over to the function of Judgment, that they might be 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 57 

ordered into a consistent experience. This function of 
Judgment was found constituted with four primitive 
forms for ordering the Intuitions, distinguished as 
those of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Mode ; and 
these each subdivided into three subsidiary forms, 
making the well-known twelve Categories as the basis 
of the human Understanding. The intuitions become 
fashioned and connected in these forms as the chick 
in the egg, or the embryo in the womb, and hence 
they were named a priori Conceptions, as teeming 
with the intuitions given to them, from whence the 
ordered intuitions issue in their respective kinds and 
varieties of Judgments. Intuitions alone are blind ; 
conceptions alone are empty ; but the intuitions or- 
dered in the conceptions become intelligible objects 
in a consistently connected experience. 

And now, it is practicable, in the use of the a priori 
forms alone, to attain a universal scheme for all possi- 
ble human knowledge. The form of Time may be 
taken as generally inclusive of all intuitions, and so 
put into the pure conceptions as to give the pure 
schemes of all possible Judgments. This process was 
known as " the Schematism of the Understanding." 

First, the moments of time taken as continuous 
units and given to the category of Quantity, will 
come out in general schemes of its three varieties of 
Judgments. The moments connected in a series will 
give the scheme for Unity ; the unarrested flow of 
the series will give the scheme for Plurality ; and the 
exclusion of all limits to the series will give the 



58 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



scheme for absolute Totality. These moments, again, 
put within the category of Quality, will give the 
schemes for all its varieties of Judgments. The mo- 
ments as content in the conception will give the 
scheme for Reality; as content withheld from the cat- 
egory, the scheme for Negation ; and as zero, where 
content meets a void of content, the scheme for Lim- 
itation. But more important for the connections in 
experience is the giving of time to the category of 
Relation. The perduring time will give scheme for 
Substantiality ; the successive time for Causality ; and 
coetaneous time the scheme for Reciprocity. In this 
way may be an d priori determination of all possible 
kinds and varieties of Judgments the human intelli- 
gence can have in experience, for the actual forms 
must be ordered according to these a priori schemes. 
It is, however, to be carefully noted that this is all 
from an analysis of empirical fact, and its a priori 
knowledge of experience is still a posteriori to the 
Intelligence that is to have the experience. The 
mind is a fact already made, and such a mind may so 
know ; but some other order of mind may be consti- 
tuted to know objects differently, perhaps directly 
contradictorily. The Critic of pure Reason has still 
no Absolute Reason for determining an absolutely 
and universally valid knowledge. The only specula- 
tive Reason recognized is a regulative Faculty, di- 
recting the search for the Absolute ; but inasmuch as 
no possible form of the Judgment can furnish a con- 
tent to its empty Ideals, so the critical Reason must 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 59 

ever remain barren of all cognition of the Absolute. 
Man may know all of sense-appearance, and in the 
understanding may order this in an experience which 
he knows as nature, but he can never know the super- 
natural. 

And it is also to be noted, that some outer " thing 
in itself" must be assumed to give affection and con- 
tent to the sense-receptivity, or the sense can give 
nothing to the understanding that it may connect in 
the judgments of experience. This " thing in itself" 
was to the last insisted upon as necessary to be as- 
sumed in thought, though not it, and only the im- 
pressions from it, could be brought within conscious- 
ness. As thought only it was known as noumenon, 
and its imparted representative was phenomenon; 
the latter was the object as known, the former could 
never become object. 

A Second Stage of the Critical Philosophy, rejecting 
the noumenon, or " thing in itself," as confessedly 
beyond all consciousness, held it necessary to come 
to the knowledge of what knowing is, by a careful 
analysis of the knowing-process alone. It supposed 
itself to be truly the philosophy of the first stage 
more carefully analyzed, inasmuch as that had taught 
that the one " I think " must accompany every repre- 
sentation in consciousness, in order to preserve the 
unity of consciousness ; but when the Philosopher 
of the first stage somewhat indignantly and very 
emphatically discarded this interpretation, and in- 



60 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

sisted on retaining the noumenon, the Philosopher 
of the second stage intrepidly took his own way, 
only insisting that it was plainly the way the first 
should have taken. 

Its explanation, in a very general form, is as follows : 
The multitude have their sense-representations, and 
put them in a connected experience, but they do not 
reflect on what they have done, and hence have no 
clear knowledge of their process of knowing. The 
speculative philosopher does not rest in this conscious- 
ness of common experience, but by careful reflection 
upon it brings it to a new and higher conscious- 
ness, in which he comes to know how he has the 
common conscious experience. A record of what is 
attained in this philosophic consciousness is " the 
Science of Knowledge." 

The common experience is under necessity, for the 
representations come from somewhere into the con- 
sciousness without being ordered by it; but the re- 
flection of the philosopher is wholly free, for he turns 
back upon his common experience from his own motion 
altogether, and voluntarily controls his own thinking. 
On going up to the dawning of any of his representa- 
tions in consciousness, he finds them to have been 
dependent on conditions which do not come within 
consciousness, and reflection is cut short, for he finds 
nothing further to turn back upon. But where re- 
flection can know nothing, philosophic contemplation 
of the rising repi'esentations in consciousness can 
cognize in them their determining conditions. The 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 61 

knowing is beyond proof; back of all data in con- 
sciousness, even below consciousness itself; and yet a 
knowing absolutely sure and valid on which all con- 
scious perceiving and logical proving must them- 
selves rest for their validity, and which will subse- 
quently manifest itself as the affirmation of Absolute 
Reason. 

We must not lose sight, that the end of the Critical 
Philosophy is the attainment of a complete theory of 
knowledge ; and that as knowing is an activity, the 
philosophy takes the subjective stand-point, and seeks 
to determine the method of activity in the subject 
knowing. There may or may not be outer things ; 
that is here no matter in question ; if there are, and 
they are known, they must be known by the activity 
of the subject knowing ; and whether outer things 
give their representation, or some other agent put 
them within the subject, it is still all the same that 
the active subject alone can know them. When, 
then, the philosopher reflects on some conscious expe- 
rience, he finds intuitions there present in conscious- 
ness, and which come and stay there without his 
ordering, and yet they could not appear to him with- 
out his activity. A dead inactive consciousness could 
not envisage, and thus the activity must have been in 
order to the envisaging ; and this too beneath the con- 
sciousness, for the appearance is the last which any re- 
flection can go back to in the consciousness. Condi- 
tional for appearance in consciousness, was some pre- 
vious agency envisaging it. That activity must have 



62 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

its law, or method of envisagement, already in and with 
it, or no ordered experience could be in conscious- 
ness ; and thus conditional for conscious experience, 
must there be an activity with its possessed method 
or law. Rational contemplation cognizes that, on the 
necessary principle of " the sufficient reason," a cog- 
nizing activity and its possessed law must already be. 
This is solely activity ; living movement ; having per- 
manent essence and identity in its law of working, 
with no other substantiality ; and this is actual and 
real, and the only reality which the speculative con- 
templation can reoognize. This is the true self, or 
ego, not yet conscious of its own being. The phi- 
losopher has cognition of it in contemplation, but it 
has not yet come to itself. The philosophic conscious- 
ness states it as already a doing; a deed-act, since 
its very essence is methodical activity ; and in it we 
have the ego equal to self; ego = ego. 

The ego's method of activity is self-limitation ; de- 
fining its own activity, and thus terminating itself 
in that which is not-self: the ego oppositing to itself 
a non-ego, since no intelligence can be without dis- 
tinction, or limiting its activity in that which is 
some other. And in this the philosophic contem- 
plation posits a non-ego not = ego. 

The waking consciousness has in this a vague 
recognition of self and something other; and one 
more step completes the process. The confusion 
now is, that two opposites, ego and non-ego, strive 
for admission, and neither can be in consciousness 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 

without the other ; and they are opposites, and it must 
needs be, as would seem, that one exclude the other. 
The necessary method of the activity is here coun- 
ter-movement from each side, and then the ego limits 
the non-ego, and the oscillation or return movement 
gives the non-ego limiting the ego. They are both 
now in full consciousness, discriminated each from 
each. The ego has found itself distinct from all that 
is not itself, and henceforth its activity is clear con- 
scious agency. 

When, in the full consciousness, the ego is taken 
as limiting itself in the non-ego, the occasion is 
given for the science of knowledge in its Theoretic 
Part, The philosopher sees that all the work is by 
the one real activity, and that the non-ego is but a 
self-separation or reduplication of the ego, and the 
product of its essential method in self-limitation. 
The common unreflecting consciousness takes the 
ego as subject, and the non-ego as object, and holds 
them to be distinct, in being, and the latter as external 
to the former. The philosopher thus, knowing the 
truth of the higher consciousness and the illusion 
of the lower common consciousness, can expound 
them both, and has in his contemplative position full 
opportunity to give a record of the entire process 
of Theoretic Knowledge. 

When, on the other hand, the ego is taken as lim- 
iting the non-ego by itself, the occasion is given for 
the science of knowledge in its Practical Part. The 
philosopher sees that in the being of the living activi- 






64 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

ty with its essential law, there must be a prompting 
as a claim, or self-behest, to work out its whole 
method ; and that what it thus should do, it can and 
spontaneously will do ; and thus that, which poten- 
tially is in the ego, will become actually a reality 
from the ego ; and nature, and society, and state 
regulations must follow in their development. But 
still, with all the practical reality, it is a real within, 
and not external to, the ego ; and illusive as all is to 
the common consciousness, the philosopher cognizes 
the whole in its truth, that the knowing can have 
nothing oiitside of its own activity. 

The reality of the world came from fulfilling, that 
is, realizing the essential law in the ego, and is thus 
the product and creation from this essential moral 
order ; and this eternal Moral Order is the eternal 
God; creator, and governor of universal experience. 
There is nothing which does not "live, and move, 
and have its being " in this essential, eternal Moral 
Order. We can apprehend none other, be compre- 
hended by none other, and truly need none other 
God. 

A necessary inquiry was left here unanswered. 
The philosopher stands outside the common conscious- 
ness, and contemplates it as a panorama before him. 
Is the philosopher Absolute Ego ? May there be 
many Absolutes ? or is there an absolute ego in- 
clusive of every ego and non-ego ? 

A very ingenious and elaborate speculation was 
here introduced, and held the Absolute to be essential 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 65 

activity in an indifference-point between subject and 
object, and with the All potentially in itself in that 
point. As a living energy, the Absolute discedes from 
the point, projecting itself each way, and becoming 
on one hand subject and on the other object ; the 
subject and object thus standing to each other in con- 
sciousness as the two opposite poles of the one living 
energy — they identical in the Absolute, and the Ab- 
solute not in consciousness ; but when projected as 
opposite*, they were made distinct and definite in the 
consciousness, while the Absolute still remained be- 
neath consciousness, and could be recognized only in 
an " Intellectual Intuition." The law or method of 
activity is essentially intelligent, the Absolute having 
the Universal in its grasp originally, then disceding 
and distinguishing into subject and object, then har- 
monizing or identifying the distinctions as subject 
and predicate in a judgment. There is thus the po- 
tential All in the Absolute, and by the perpetual sys- 
tem of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, this is succes- 
sively developed into the subjective and the objective, 
which are but two modes of view from opposite sides 
of one and the same life-energy, and of which there 
can be no more than two fundamental sciences, viz. : 
The Philosophy of Mind, in the self-consciousness of 
the subject ; and the Philosophy of Nature, in the life 
and movement of the objective world. 

But with all the enthusiasm which the brilliancy of 
this " Identity system " kindled in its many disciples 
at its first announcement, it soon fell outside the 
5 






66 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

onward flow of speculative thinking, and fixes no dis- 
tinct stage for itself in the continuous movement of 
the Critical Philosophy. The march went round it, 
and did not take this up into it. If the Absolute be 
one, how differentiate into the relative ? If it could 
effect this, it must be at the expense of itself, becom- 
ing a neutrum ; and even if held to be self-active, in 
distinction from an Absolute Substance, what advan- 
tage could come from this, since the Activity must be 
self-destructive ? The piquant presentations of these 
weak points effectually excluded it, as a starting- 
point for attaining any advanced position. Such an 
Absolute, it was said, could give no reason for itself, 
but " came as if shot from a pistol." It was merely 
an occasion for identifying subject and object, and so 
" only as the night, in which every cow looks black.'' 
The same self-opposites perpetually returned to iden- 
tity, " as if a painter took only opposite red and green 
to blend into all colors." The Author himself fre- 
quently modified his starting-point, and finally assumed 
for his Absolute a free personal Will. 

A third Stage, however, was soon attained by a 
speculation from a more profound principle, and car- 
ried to a more comprehensive result. So far as pure 
thinking is concerned, this last speculation leaves 
little else to be done, and little also of itself that 
needs to be done over. Its method of graded move- 
ment in the subjective ego is much after the manner 
of the second stage, and yet the movement begins 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 67 

and concludes quite differently from the second or 
the first stage. It does not begin with a finite ego in 
common consciousness or philosophic contemplation, 
but the movement from the start is of the Absolute 
itself. A preliminary analysis of consciousness at- 
tains an absolute thought-process, from which, as 
causa sui, the dialectic may begin thought and con- 
summate all thinking. The process, moreover, is of 
a logical instead of a moral order; the logic develop- 
ing into ethic by the inward interest of systematic 
completeness, and not the pressure of duty. And 
still another point of difference obtains: Instead of 
the philosopher contemplating the process from the 
outside, and thus knowing objectively the subject 
knowing, it puts the organ within the process, and 
sees the entire consciousness in its own transparency. 
A very condensed statement of the whole will here 
be given. 

The preliminary analysis above mentioned, or rath- 
er a traverse of the whole movement in conscious- 
ness, is known as the Phenomenology of the Spirit. 
It takes the immediate sense-appearance, and in close 
scrutiny finds perpetually perplexing contradictions 
arising, the explanation of which carries the process 
after truth to successively higher and more comprehen- 
sive attainments. Every new statement of truth is 
seen, when examined, to have its remaining difficulties 
requiring fuller elucidation. An outline of this chase 
of truth through consciousness is as follows : — 

When we attentively examine sense-appearances, 



68 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

seeking to know just what truly is and abides in the 
consciousness, we find all else passing away but a 
permanently abiding " this " in the appearances ; and 
a little further care finds that with a permanent " this " 
there is also an abiding " there " or a " now." Thus 
the immediate appearance may be a man, and yet 
anon the man has passed out, and a ho\ise, and 
then a tree, &c, appears in consciousness ; and yet of 
all there was a permanent "this here," as this here 
man, this here house, &c. And so, again, the imme- 
diate may he night and pass away, and the immediate is 
then morning, then noon, &c. And yet in all the passing 
there has been a perpetual " this now " night, " this 
now " morning, &c, standing in consciousness. The 
" this here " or " this now " has been the true which 
the consciousness has kept while the appearances 
came and passed away. And yet the " this," here or 
now, is not the essentially true, for a further careful 
scrutiny observes that there is no " this " except as I 
behold it. The "this" means nothing but as in my 
consciousness, and the "/" is the essentially true for 
the immediate " this." 

And still again, when we closely observe this 7", we 
find it continually passing from appearance to appear- 
ance, and standing under them as the mediate in con- 
sciousness, so that the appearances are no longer 
immediate, but are nothing except through the me- 
dium of the I. The true, then, is not an immediate 
beholding, but a perceiving, or taking through a me- 
dium. We have thus, in chase of the true, in this 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 69 

third scrutiny, gone quite over from immediate con- 
sciousness into another sphere, which gives the true 
reflected in a medium, and have thus passed quite 
through the First Phase of knowing, which is named 
that of Common Consciousness. 

In passing over from Common Consciousness to re- 
flected knowledge of the understanding, we stand at 
once in this position : knowing the ego as under all 
the appearances, and knowing them as only reflections 
from the ego, and so in the Judgment they are quali- 
ties in the substance or effects in the cause. They 
are the reflection, or other side, of the ego itself, and 
could not be in consciousness but for the ego, and so the 
ego could not be in consciousness except for them. 
And this is true both for what the common conscious- 
ness may deem outer or inner experiences, material 
qualities or mental exercises ; for we now understand 
them to be alike reflections from the one ego. The 
ego is continually turning the reflection from side to 
side, for it cannot keep either in consciousness without 
the other, and it cannot have both at once as the true. 
This struggling, see-saw mode of knowing wants a 
more stable standing, and the ego is forced to find a 
point in which it may be conscious of itself without 
dependence upon its representations. Watching care- 
fully the reflections from the two sides of itself, the 
ego notes the subjective to be the active force which 
holds all the representations, and the true essential 
Activity, while nature is but its reflected alterum; and 
herein the ego knows itself to be lord of nature. 



70 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

And yet this control of nature is not satisfying, for 
there is ever a colliding with and conditioning by 
nature, and not complete freedom from the necessities 
and obtrasive interferences of nature. The logical in- 
terest prompts the process onward to the point of full 
liberty. This cannot be in the communings of the ego 
with nature, and only of like with like. Historically, 
the ego enters into communion with other egos, and 
all come thus to recognize both themselves and each 
other. Each knows his own freedom and acknowl- 
edges the freedom of others, and thus the ego comes to 
complete self-recognition, and passes wholly through the 
Second Phase of knowing, termed Self-Consciousness. 

The ego now knows itself in communion with other 
egos, and all the sympathies of social life come 
within consciousness. Still the satisfactorily true is 
not folly reached, and the interest of logical com- 
pleteness persists in the traverse. Ego opposes ego, 
and the freedom of one encroaches on the freedom of 
all, and the true point of social equilibrium and stable 
peace is in the harmonizing individual will to the uni- 
versal, and the one will in all is the only true for the 
consciousness. The atomic egos now dwell in the 
universal, and the Absolute Ego has the knowledge 
and consenting purpose of all wills in his. All na- 
ture and all humanity are now one in the Absolute. 
He knows himself as having all thinking and all 
thought in consciousness, and gazes steadily and 
eternally on pure Truth. This is the Third Phase of 
knowing, termed the Universal Reason. 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 71 

The Phenomenology thus terminates in a causa sui, 
which in consciousness is also causa omnium. 

Now, he who has traversed the knowing-process of 
the Phenomenology, comprehends what he has done, 
and has an interest in taking the complete Idea at- 
tained, and seeing percur from the start a priori, 
the whole process he has been traversing a posteriori. 
He knows that every enterprising mind must also 
be interested in such d priori process of knowledge. 
He can now set the whole before all such earnest 
thinkers, and make the Idea he has gained dialectical- 
ly work out for them all subjective and all objective 
knowledge, and finally all self-knowledge, and thereby 
present a complete and pure Science of Logic. He 
may then take the logical objective and thoroughly 
dissolve it into its elements, and therein present a 
pure Science of Nature. And then, again, he can 
take the pure Intelligence from Nature, and give it in 
all its stages from militant to triumphant, and thence 
on to absolutely regnant and sole originant of all 
thinking and knowing, and therein a pure Science of 
Mind will be presented. And of this it is which the 
Third Stage of the Critical Philosophy has essayed 
the accomplishment. 

But while the speculatist who comprehends the 
Phenomenology knows that the possibility of all this 
is in the Idea, his logical interest induces to the put- 
ting aside the results of previous study, and permit- 
ting the Idea to work out its own fulness after its 
method, while he absorbs himself in the movement, and, 



72 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

with no forecasting, sees this rational Idea in pro- 
gressive development. The record of such consum- 
mated development will be the Science of Logic. 

This Idea, attained in the Phenomenology, we here 
take and put ourselves in it, even make our mind 
identical with it, and become clearly conscious of 
what it does. We before called it causa sui et om- 
nium, but only for the sake of a statement; while, 
in fact, any statement in words must be a misstate- 
ment, for the Idea is comprehensive of all substance, 
cause, and universal thought, as their independent 
source. It is in itself the pure activity knowing, 
and in which process we are to see how all knowing 
is and must be ; and we can best describe it as the 
knowing activity in its Idea. As ideal knowing, it 
is pure thought-agency originating thought, while 
thought yet is not. 

The Idea has Being in its most void abstraction. 
It is, and that is all which can be said of it ; and this 
is as if we had said it is nought ; for it has no pred- 
icate we can connect in a judgment with it. We 
see that it and nought are the same ; and yet in that 
seeing we see the Idea already in action, and our 
mind the seeing organ within it, and what we have 
to do is just to note what comes of the movement. We 
learned its method in the Phenomenology. It is, that 
it may become universal knower, and is thus neces- 
sarily a dialectic in attaining the end of its activity. 
All Affirmation is also Negation ; and the negating of 
the negation is a more full Reaffirmation ; and such is 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 73 

the rhythmical movement through the whole process. 
With the simple affirmation there is also a negation 
which distinguishes, and then the negation is itself 
nullified, and the distinction thereby brought to a 
higher unity. The movement is therefore in a per- 
petual tripartite gradation of thesis, antithesis, and 
synthesis ; threefold in each step, three steps to each 
state, and three states to each successive stage ; and 
then the two last stages are taken separately from 
the logical cycle, and made to round themselves in 
the consummated sphere of Absolute Knowledge. 
Tho content posited with each step is carried virtual- 
ly along through all the succeeding, — " suppressed," 
i. e., pressed under and kept within the following 
gradations, — and thus the knowledge augments with 
each removal. But we again caution not to forecast, 
and only nqte as we move; we are here to forget 
everything, and begin knowing. 

The Science of Logic. 

Our intellectual organ is in the Idea, and yet knows 
nothing of it; but a glance first gives its pure being: 
we cannot say it is this or that, for it is utterly 
predicateless, and the same as nought. We can say 
nought is, as well as we can say pure being is; and 
in saying either we say just as much and as little 
for one as the other. There is no predicate to finish 
a judgment for either. But the Idea is already mov- 
ing and merely determining without stating, and as 
yet the action is simple determination. 



74 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



Being. 

The determining movement passes into a separat- 
ing, or to and from, movement between being and 
nought, and the synthesis in the oscillation is a limita- 
tion, in which there is a coming combination of the 
two that is simply becoming, and thus an entering into 
the state of — 



1. Quality. — The Unity in the becoming sepa- 
rates itself, in the swing of being and nought over 
their mutual limitation respectively, and there is in- 
terpenetration, which, like the blending of pure light 
and abstract darkness that alone are invisible, has 
become a curdled something for incipient predication, 
and we can say of it, " this here," or " this now," and 
is a first step in qualifying, as simply existence. 

The Anabytic movement, again, distinguishes the 
elements in existence, as " being " and its " alteram; " 
and their synthesis is the negation of their limit, or 
finitude, between them, and affirming infinitude ; 
which unity in a third somewhat is existence which 
has inner but not outer determination, and is a second 
step in knowing, as TSein gfor-self. 

The analysis of being-for-self is its inward unity 
annulled into the elements of unit and void, for the 
negating movement, in annulling inward limitation, 
everywhere distinguishes and expels the elementary 
elements, while the reaffirming movement every- 
where condenses and attracts them, and the one 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 75 

being-for-self has its inner quality sundered into 
many, and thus quality becomes quantitative, and in 
this third step goes completely over into auother 
state which is — 

2. Quantity. — Thus far we have taken the tripar- 
tite movement seriatim in the steps, and through the 
three steps to the new state ; but as we are not here 
teaching, and only outlining the speculation, we may 
henceforward particularize less, and generalize in a 
more rapid movement. 

The Idea has now being no loDger pure, nor mere- 
ly qualified, but holding in itself finitude and infini- 
tude, repulsion and attraction, and thus competent 
both for self-direinption and self-identification, the 
synthesis of which is Quantity ; the many in the one. 
The one movement through the many is continuity; 
and the many checking-in the one movement is dis- 
cretion ; and the synthesis of the continuous and dis- 
crete is Quantity in general. 

Quantity in general with a limit is quantum ; and 
the quantity in general may have infinite quanta, 
and the multiplicity of quanta is number. A quan- 
tum outwardly determined is extensive ; and innerly 
determined is intensive; and the intensive quanta 
of an extensive quantum numbered is degree. The 
intensive degree qualifies the quantity, — as the de- 
gree of cold qualifies ice, or the degree of heat quali- 
fies steam — and such qualified quantity is the Idea 
in a higher state as — 



76 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

3. Measure. — The relation of an externally deter- 
mined quantum to its internal degree is Measure ; and 
is thus the relation of the same to itself on its differ- 
ent sides, or of its inner self as referred to its outer 
self. The measuring movement may pass on beyond 
its limit, and be measureless — or it may withdraw- 
indefinitely within the limit, abolishing its degrees — 
and in either case it loses itself; but the specific 
ratio of inner degree to extensive quantum measures 
itself. Its determined inner refers itself back to its 
outer, and thoroughly and exactly qualifies the quan- 
tity and specifies the thing. Quality and quantity be- 
come identical in the thing, and being is suppressed 
beneath its own reflection. There is no more imme- 
diate apprehension, but mediate reflection ; and the 
movement passes from the stage of pure being as 
perceived, to reflected being in the judgment, and we 
now have Being in the higher logical stage as — 

Essence. 

In this stage, the Idea has taken all determinable- 
ness of being in unity within the Idea ; and the move- 
ment is necessarily henceforth reflective, and in 
perpetual change from side to side. Viewed psycho- 
logically, it is the working of the understanding with 
sense-apprehensions. 

As mere Essence, it is source for reflecting ; and 
in which reflecting and reflected are identical. The 
Essence as one must yet exist as twofold. The An- 
tithesis may be of many varieties, and yet if one side 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 77 

of tho antithesis be, the other must also be. They 
are such as cause and effect; substance and acci- 
dence : matter and form ; positive and negative, &c. 
The common understanding holds tliem as different 
existences, and thereby logically annihilates all ex- 
istence in contradictions and absurdities. They can 
only be as complementary in the same essence; and 
hence the simple essence, as source for reflection, is 
the potential for all existence. 

But the possible reflecting is also the necessary 
reflecting ; for the essence can be only in the reflec- 
tion. The cause is not, except as going into effect ; 
the substance is not, except in its accidence, &c. 
This necessity of reflecting is Force and its Manifes- 
tation ; the cause appears in its effect ; and the Idea 
moves the essential into its further state as the phe- 
nomenal. 

But in reflection essence and appearance are recip- 
rocal. The effect must be as its cause, and the 
accidence as the substance ; and thus both must be 
in the hand of an Actual which grasps both in one; 
and in this the Idea has gone over into the higher 
state as actuality ; in which all reflection is " sup- 
pressed," and the movement carried over into a third 
stage ; and as simple actual it can be nothing other 
than the thought-process in its Idea, whose move- 
ment we have been all along absorbingly contemplat- 
ing. We have thus clearly attained, and pass over 
within the still higher stage of — 



78 knowledge op a creator. 

The Idea. 

The Idea has universal essence within itself as a 
self-containing and self-contained whole, with all its 
particulars indiscriminate and unformalized, except 
as in their logical law; and is thus subjective Idea. 
The movement then differentiates and successively 
11 suppresses : ' the differences, as mechanical distinc- 
tion in molecular exclusion and inclusion — chemical 
combination by annulling the complemental elements 
in a third thing — and teleological construction by ad- 
aptations to purposed design ; and is thus objective 
Idea. From this, the movement carries the Idea 
into spontaneous activity as Life, intellectual activity 
as Cognition, and voluntary activity as Will, which is 
the knowing itself as the good, and producing itself 
into the Eternally good, and thus completing and rest- 
ing all thought in Absolute Good, as the Idea in its 
Identity. 

In this the Science of Logic is completed, and the 
finishing of this is really the consummation of the 
philosophy ; for the logic has carried out the full 
cycle of all thinking. The Second Part, or Science 
of Nature, is but taking up anew the Objective Idea, 
and with minuter precision purifying Mind from its 
otherness in matter, and therein dissolving nature 
wholly into Intelligence ; and then taking the Subjec- 
tive Idea, and more purely sublimating Mind through 
social Law, Art, Religion, and pure Philosophy, to Ab- 
solute Reason, as the permanent gaze upon open truth 



CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 79 

itself. In this way the speculation has given to it- 
self the figure of a full ensphering rather than of a 
progress circling into itself; but its entire wealth 
lies permanently invested in the Absolute Good, as 
the Idea in its own Identity. 

The comprehensive inquiry we make then is, What is 
the intrinsic value of this Absolute good ? The answer 
may bo fairly accorded, That it is the entire compass 
of all knowledge, so far as the subjective process of 
knowing is concerned. The most searching criticism 
will find scarcely anything, perhaps utterly nothing, 
to object to it as a process complete of the science 
of thinking. And granting that, is giving to it all 
it asks. It never proposed to itself the doing of any 
more, but denies that anything more can be done. 
All knowing is but thinking ; and all the real which 
thinking can get is the thought it posits. In the 
Phenomenology it begins with the immediate objec- 
tive, but it soon excludes from itself all but the medi- 
ating movement, and finishes with the thought of an 
actual moving, which is itself subject to nothing but 
the necessity to a perpetual counter-movement. And 
in the Logic, it begins with the pure being in ac- 
tivity, and finds no other object but the otherness 
given in its own antithetic movement. To the think- 
ing subject the posited thought is object, and a seem- 
ing outer or other than the subject ; but the com- 
pleted movement expels and explains the illusion, 
and we know that every object has been but some 
image reflected from the subject. The Reason has 



80 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

been fairly recognized, and set to watch the thought- 
movement, and thoroughly expounded the whole pro- 
cess of* thinking ; and then the speculation affirms 
there is no other knowing. And now what is it worth, 
intrinsically, as philosophy of knowing overt realities? 
The only true answer is, It is worthless ; for it is not 
such knowing. It thinks, and seems to know ; but in 
knowing that its thinking is but a seeming, it makes 
all knowing empty. 

The Universal is in, and for, and brought out by, 
the Absolute thinking-process only ; and the inclina- 
tion, or force, or obligation, or will, which the Ab- 
solute know T s is solely the prompting as an inner 
subjective logical law. The objects, with their space 
and time, can be in, common for no other personality 
than solely for the subjective thinker. The Abso- 
lute is as the Oriental Brahm, thinking alone as he 
gazes silent and absorbed into his own body ; and this 
body, as Universal nature, is but the reflex of this 
silent spontaneous cogitating. Here is all the being 
and knowing possible, according to this philosophy ; 
and it cannot long satisfy. Even if our common con- 
scious knowing be but an illusive seeming, it has 
many persons, with their common objects, in a com- 
mon space and common time, which no mere sub- 
jective thinking can account for; since thus there 
is but the one thinker, with the objects and their 
one space and time solely in his consciousness. That 
Reason which has so wonderfully projected this tran- 
scendental thinking is competent, rightly applied, to 



KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON. 81 

real objective knowing, and therein attaining positive 
things as well as its own posited thoughts. Philoso- 
phy has not a comprehensive Science of Knowledge, 
till it knows a personal Absolute Creator, and an overt 
Creation as an expression of his thought held in stable 
reality by his will. 



CHAPTER II. 

REASON COMPETENT TO KNOW AN OUTER CREATION. 

Speculation cannot rest short of thorough insight 
and complete comprehension. So long as facts any- 
where merely appear, and are arranged according to 
experience only, the thoughtful mind will wake the 
inquiry, How the fact came? And why thus, and not 
otherwise ? It will not suffice to explain why the 
appearance has such a seeming to us ; the mind 
must come to know the real in the appearing, or its 
speculative inquiry will be irrepressible. Nor should 
any one choose it should be otherwise. The most 
earnest and untiring speculation is never dangerous 
if kept within the light of reason ; but the most dan- 
gerous delusions and the most hopeless contradictions 
arise from the attempt to bring speculative truth 
within the conclusions of the logical judgment. De- 
liverance alike from scepticism and credulity, and 
6 



82 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

reverence for God, and trust in his Revelation come 
only from the cultivated use of human reason. The 
deepest want of the most sceptical age is knowledge 
guided by reason. The first inquiry, then, is, What 
is, distinctively, reason-knowing? 

1. The essential Process to thorough and com- 
prehensive Knowledge. — The Sense has various 
organs which may all at once present their manifold 
content. This must be separately distinguished, and 
the distinctions accurately defined, and we thus have 
distinct and definite particulars appearing in conscious- 
ness, and known as phenomena. So far is sense- 
knowing, and here knowledge in sense stops short. 
It is confined to the particular appearance, and never 
attains the intrinsic essence nor the connected rela- 
tions. The content in mass has been wrought into 
separate particulars, and they are in the mind's grasp 
as a manifold of disconnected appearances. The 
Sense-function may, therefore, be known as the af'prt- 
/tension of particular phenomena. 

In reflecting on our sense-experience we note that 
the varied phenomena have appeared in groups, and 
that certain particulars have ever appeared in each 
other's company ; and that in other cases appearances 
have been consecutive in an invariable order, and we 
sort and arrange our mingled appearances, into the 
aggregate communities and consecutive series, as we 
have been taught from former experience. We come 
to think each appearance in the common group to be 






KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON. 83 

an attribute of the aggregate whole, and each se- 
quence a link in the perpetuated series, and so we 
conclude the aggregate to be a common thing with 
so many attributes, and the series a connected order 
of established sequences ; and herein the Understand- 
ing judges each to stand in identity with the common 
whole, and makes each particular a predicate of the 
whole as the subject. But as thus far the Judgment 
is only in accordance with the facts given in sense-ex- 
perience, and as the particulars have only invariably 
appeared in such groups and sequences, there is no 
known ground in which the attributes inhere, and no 
known source to which the sequences adhere, and we 
cannot verify our assumed identity of subject and 
predicate in our empirical Judgments. It is mere 
logical classification after the order of experience, 
and at the most is the probability of Opinion with 
no certainty in the logical conclusion. The Under- 
standing-function may thus be known as the sorting 
of all phenomena according to the logic of Experi- 
ence ; or, in short, the logical Judgment. 

By an insight of these grouped and consecutive 
appearances, we attain the substantial ground and 
the efficient source, which necessarily and inherently 
shut the phenomena together in their respective com- 
munions and series ; and we therein come to know, 
not merely in reflection that our experience has 
been in such invariable communion and succession, 
but that with such grounds and sources the experi- 
ence could not have been otherwise ; and that the 



84 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

appearances in experience have been determined in 
conditions lying back of all experience. It is only in 
the possession of a facnlty competent to such insight, 
that we can give validity to any Judgment, and make 
any logical conclusion thoroughly clear and complete- 
ly comprehensive. Such is the faculty of Reason ; 
and we may know its function as the comprehension 
of universal experience. 

Here are the necessary and invariable steps in 
the process of knowing real existences. The Sense 
apprehends distinct and definite Appearance ; the 
logical Judgment gives probable conclusions as Opin- 
ion ; the finite Reason, so far as it attains necessary 
and universal principles, secures comprehensive Knowl- 
edge. Modern Philosophy has mainly ignored the com- 
prehensive function, and that now demands special 
and careful contemplation. 

The merely sentient animal is competent to intel- 
lectual action, through the first and second steps of 
this process : the empirical consciousness in man 
circumscribes itself within these limits ; but since 
man has been endowed with rationality, though he 
may not have come to recognize distinctively what 
reason is, yet will its possession necessarily drift him 
on to speculations beyond Sense-appearance and Em- 
pirical logic. The prompting enterprise of his reason 
is irrepressible ; and the hopelessness of the effort is 
equally sad to contemplate, when it vainly strives to 
repress philosophical speculation as too adventurous, 
or to satisfy the philosophic impulse by any indue- 






KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON. 85 

tion and classification of the phenomena of experience. 
Even could he find all phenomena, and their order of 
occurrence in universal experience, the deeper want 
of his being would bo still unsupplied, and the more 
facts he had, the more intensely would he yearn to 
know what forces determined them, and what prin- 
ciples controlled them. But in the exclusion of 
rational insight, he can legitimately employ neither 
essential forces nor ultimate principles, for they are 
wholly supersensible. 

What is thus unconsciously within the man is per- 
petually denying to him any rest in merely logical 
conclusions from empirical data. Finding facts and 
classifying them by experiment may for a time amuse, 
but never can satisfy. His unconscious reason forces 
him somehow to deem the relations of sense-appear- 
ances to be fixed connections ; and though quite illo- 
gically, yet is he ever assuming that his qualities 
have substance under them, and his sequences have 
cause between them, and thus he surreptitiously 
makes of his experience a fixed nature of things. 
Nor can he stop in nature, for his unrecognized rea- 
son must rise above it, and assume a first Cause ; and 
then will come in, what to his infidel philosophy must 
be, superstitious reverence and worship. He cannot 
refrain from talking about natural laws and spiritual 
responsibilities, though his philosophy most resolutely 
denies that he can know anything about either of them. ' 

Such prompting to reach beyond experience is a 
sure witness to a supersensible endowment, and a 



86 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

perpetual rebuke to the philosophy which struggles 
hard to get on with no acknowledgment of it. We 
may refer to any one instance of clear and quiet con- 
viction, and a satisfactory resting in the knowing, 
and we shall ever find that this satisfied conviction 
is in the insight of a controlling connection, by which 
the manifold is seized comprehensively in complete 
individuality. The sense and the understanding may 
perfect the appearances, and complete the external 
relations in a concluded total, and we may opine 
what the thing is, compared with other experiences ; 
but we only know its essential nature, when we have 
looked through its intrinsic connection and found the 
indivisible tie which holds the many in its one com- 
prehension. Any Object, as a Bird or a Beast, may 
have all its phenomenal parts apprehended, and these 
may be sorted and arranged in body and members 
exactly and completely ; but we know the animal 
only in knowing the living sentient bond that thor- 
oughly individualizes the organism. We put to- 
gether and name a House, as an outside construction 
of brick and timbers, but we comprehensively know 
the house only in the design which runs through it 
to its end, and the forces which grasp the whole in 
balanced unity. The manifold in anything may ap- 
pear in Sense, and be classified as a whole in the 
Judgment, but its essence is comprehensively known 
only by the insight of Reason. 

Without here regarding the distinction, whether 
this inner tie be that of the thought after which the 



i 



KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON. 87 

thing - has been constituted, or that of the forces which 
have constituted it by equilibrating themselves in it, 
we will adduce some plain examples of comprehension 
beyond Sense and logical Judgment, and in which is 
attained a thorough knowledge that the insight of 
Reason can alone secure. 

The manner in which we use and interpret expres- 
sive Symbols is directly in point to exhibit the work 
of the Reason beyond Sense and Judgment. Animal 
cries are the impulse of constitutional nature, and are 
given in the same way under the like conditions, at 
all times, by the same species. A Symbol is an ex- 
pression outwardly of an inner sentiment, and the 
expression must be wholly ruled by the inner senti- 
ment, and thus hold the very thought or feeling with- 
in it if it is to become in any way intelligible. So 
the national seal, or flag, expresses the sovereign will 
and pledge of authority, and these are so put in to 
the symbol that another can take them out and inter- 
pret them. But Reason alone can so put in or take 
out, and neither Sense nor Judgment can. And so of 
class emblems, party badges, or religious rites and 
ceremonies, — they are all symbols outwardly express- 
ing an inner meaning, and such meaning Reason only 
can give or take ; and hence symbolic speech can be a 
mode of communication only between rational beings. 

The Symbol may be in modulated tones addressed 
to the ear, or colored characters presented to the eye, 
and the organs may take exactly and completely all 
that sense can apprehend, and the judgment may se- 



88 KNOWLEDGE OF A CEEATOB. 

lect and arrange the elemental parts according to any- 
empirical classification, but it is meaningless form and 
outer letter only till the Reason put in and take out 
the quickening power of Sentiment, which is the soul 
of the whole systematic arrangement. There is then 
no longer any separate particulars. Every letter is 
one in the word ; all the words are one in the sen- 
tence ; and all the sentences are one in the speech ; 
and that which the insight of Reason alone reads 
shuts every part together in a single. The animal 
organs might apprehend the whole as well as the hu- 
man ; the rational being alone can have the thorough 
insight, and take the comprehensive meaning. It is 
another thing to the Reason than it can be to the 
Sense-experience ; and to this it is a perfect unit, dis- 
membered and so far destroyed if a single element be 
taken from it. 

So, also, we may instance the manner in which the 
reason reads mechanical Forces in outer objects. The 
sense-experience attains in any machine all the partic- 
ulars of form, arrangement, and movement ; but no 
sense, nor judgment according to sense, can know 
the moving force which actuates the working engine. 
The Animal Sense may get the consciousness of ner- 
vous and muscular irritation and contraction in its 
own body and members, and may perceive its attach- 
ment to, and the turning of, any arranged machinery 
which it may be working ; but the power itself which 
moves its living limbs, and passes over into the turn- 
ing machine, no animal sense can ever seize and hold 



KNOWLEDGE IN THE REASON. 89 

up to its own gaze in the light of consciousness. But 
the Reason-insight penetrates the moving parts of the 
machine, and even the living motions of the animal 
body, and knows the force that wakes and works, first 
in the animal muscle, and then in the arranged ma- 
chinery. Till this force is thus seen moving and 
working in every part, the machinery is but a mass 
of particulars, each standing by itself and isolate, 
but that force runs through all the particulars and 
makes them one, and the whole is completely compre- 
hended by it. 

And so, moreover, the Sense-representation can 
give the rising and setting sun, and take in all the 
revolutions of the planets, and the arrangements of 
the visible heavens ; and observations and calcula- 
tions therefrom may fill out all the scientific plan of 
formal astronomy ; but no observation nor deductions 
from experience can bring into consciousness the 
force which holds the stars in their places or turns 
them in their orbits ; nor know what force is, or how 
it works. Force is beyond the sphere of Sense, and 
all the heavenly bodies are separate bodies, and in 
the apprehension can be grasped only in imaginary 
constellations. But the insight of Reason penetrates 
the Sense-appearance and knows the forces which de- 
termine them ; that without the force the appearance 
could not be, and that with such forces the appear- 
ances could be in no other manner. The forces are 
themselves the essential substances and acting causes, 
and as the Reason has them, they necessarily connect 



90 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

the separate phenomena together, and all the moving 
worlds make but the single universe. The intrinsic 
connections hidden from all Sense, and leaving matter 
to be understood only as experience puts under one 
part some other part, make to the Reason the world of 
matter more than understood, even thoroughly seen 
and perfectly comprehended in its essential and neces- 
sary unity. The parts are but one in the reciprocal 
forces which shut them all together. 

The Beautiful in any work of Art, or the True in 
any Geometrical Diagram, or the Good in Moral Char- 
acter, might here be appropriately noticed as what 
the insight of Reason only can reach, and by which 
the manifold in either sphere is completely individual- 
ized and instantly comprehended. There will, how- 
ever, be frequent occasions in our further advance 
for the better contemplation of these and other in- 
stances of supersensible insight. It need now only 
be remarked that the insight of Reason as the last 
step in Knowledge has truly in it, as brought along 
and retained, the whole content of the two former 
steps. It may be either as a piercing glance, or a 
steady gaze, which seizes the whole at once in perfect 
comprehension. The tie that, in uniting, cancels the 
manifoldness, holds still within it all that is individ- 
ualized by it, and thus the Reason knows all in the 
one glance which catches the comprehending connec- 
tive. Reason-knowing is perfect, instant, comprehen- 
sive, knowing at a glance, and is also incessant-know- 
ing as a constant gaze. Both the outer and inner are 



, 



ABSURDITIES OP SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 91 

together in thorough contemplation, and thus the Rea- 
son has in its grasp Absolute Truth. 

2. Speculative Absurdities in Sense and Logic 
become Truth in the Reason. — All men have rea- 
son, though few distinctively and clearly recognize it. 
Hence the irrepressible curiosity that reaches after 
explanations beyond appearances, and also beyond 
any conclusions which may logically be deduced from 
them. In his ignorance of Reason, and its appropri- 
ate application to comprehensive knowledge, the man 
resorts to the functions of Sense and Judgment, of 
which he has conscious possession,' and seeks to an- 
swer those questions of Reason by his Senses and 
logical Understanding; hence the large amount of 
profitless and delusive speculations which abound in 
every age. This remanding to Sense and Logic what 
belongs to a higher function necessarily induces con- 
tradictions and absurdities. The lower faculty has 
been set to work out the problems of a higher, and 
self-delusion and self-contradiction should be expect- 
ed. The whole is cured, and absurdities avoided, 
while truth is established, by carefully using the right 
and excluding the impertinent interference of the 
wrong faculty. 

The whole sphere of Antinomies in the conflicting 
of different intellectual functions has been by others 
formally stated, but we need here, to give only some 
leading examples. 

Motion, and Change in degree of movement, to the 



92 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

sense, have logical absurdities. The law of continuity 
is inviolable, and forbids a leap over any degree in 
the increment or retardation of motion. How then 
may motion begin? and having begun, how cease? 
Its degrees in velocity must each be either indivisible 
or infinitely divisible ; but if the former, no passing them 
can make progress ; and if the latter, then can there 
be no progress except in an infinite time. And so 
with any change in rate of motion; the degree can be 
neither increased nor diminished without the like ab- 
surdities. 

So with any knowledge of Space or Time. They 
must be subjective in mind, or objective out of mind. 
If subjective, there must be as many spaces and times 
as conscious minds, for each has its own. But if they 
are objective, they must have properties distinguishing 
them from non-existences ; and yet of space, its only 
property is extension, and of time it is succession. 
But extended existing space must have another space 
in which to be, and successive existing time must 
have another time in which to pass. Are they then 
non-existences except in our subjective minds? If 
so, then existing bodies may both be and change, with 
no existing outer space and time. 

And so again, the being of Matter is an absurdity ; 
for if matter is, it is either compound or simple. If 
the former, it must be infinitely divisible, and its infi- 
nite compounds have still infinite spaces and times. If 
the latter, the simples are entities which have neither 
inner nor outer, neither upper nor lower sides, and 



ABSURDITIES OF SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 93 

can occupy no portions of space or time. So agaiu, 
if matter exist, it must either be solid or have voids 
within it. If the former, then it must be incompressi- 
ble, contrary to the fact ; if the latter, then matter 
must act on matter through voids of mutter, which 
would be effects where there were no causes. Is, 
then, matter to be made conceivable as points neither 
solid nor void ? Such unextended points could neither 
hold together from within, nor resist from without. 
The very existence of matter is full of logical con- 
tradictions, which no work of the understanding can 
solve. 

And equally so with the existence of spirit as other 
than matter. If immaterial, and thus free and re- 
sponsible, we have the contradiction to nature and 
nature's laws, which nowhere give liberty, but bind 4 
in conditions without an alternative ; and if such 
order may be broken, then universal scepticism must 
follow. On the other hand, spiritual liberty must be, 
or conscious obligation and responsibility cannot be. 
Without freedom, law is tyranny, and the stings of con- 
science an atrocious constitutional perversion, and all 
penalty is savage cruelty. The speculation of the 
ages has here been in dialectical conflict, and any 
help from sense or logic is altogether hopelessly im- 
possible. 

Finally here, if we inquire, Whence is the Uni- 
verse ? all logical attempts to answer must run into 
hopeless contradictions. The universe has necessary 
being in itself; or it has been self-produced ; or it has 



94 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

had some external Creator. If we take the first, 
then, as necessary being, it must have been ever 
necessary and ever unchanging in its necessity, while 
now nature is perpetually changing. If we take the 
second, then the actual has come from a potential; 
but to be potential for a universe must be to have 
inner causality on conditions, and so already an ex- 
istence, and running at once into the former absur- 
dity of necessary existence with changes. We have 
then only the third, and if created by another, it first 
existed in that other; and we have just the same 
dialectic to percur which we have just gone through 
from the start after universal nature's origin. The 
very attempt to find an origin logically involves the 
absurdity of a first which cannot stand except as a 
second. If we call the first a Beginner, a First Cause, 
a Cause in Liberty, we have already seen the ab- 
surdities involved in each. If we say, he is him- 
self the Infinite, it is but putting all finites into a 
larger, and somewhere stopping on a largest finite. 
If we call him the Unconditioned, it will somewhere 
be a resting on a conditioner that has already con- 
ditions put within him. If at length we call him the 
Absolute, logically we must find him so little absolved, 
that is so much bound, that he must bind all below 
to him. The logical Infinite is merely an outside 
finite, the logical Unconditioned is but an upper con- 
ditioned, and a logical Absolute has in it already the 
bonds you arbitrarily cease to look for from beyond. 
In many ways, yea, in all ways which transcend 






ABSURDITIES OF SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 95 

nature's experienced connections, a dexterous logi- 
cian may astonish by taking you to insoluble contra- 
dictions from the plainest experiences. But in all 
such cases, it is a logical legerdemain in which the 
conjurer is his own dupe. He has put empirical logic 
to the solution of problems which it cannot compre- 
hend, and which by following he must misapprehend, 
and to any one whose insight makes clear the point 
of his delusion, there is not even amusement in look- 
ing upon the empty absurdities. 

But the case becomes very different when we put 
these speculations in the light that reveals, and at 
the same time dispels, the delusion. The reason 
never so deludes, and once to let the reason reveal 
the source of the illusion is forever to dissipate it. 
We will give examples from both the Sense and the 
logical Judgment, and from the former, both that of 
a transcendental diminution and a transcendental ex- 
pansion. 

To sense, a central point can be no object, except 
as limited all about ; and a surface also can be no 
object to sense, except as having limits on both sides. 
Every object of place must have outside and inside, 
upper and lower ; and every object in period must 
have beginning and ending, before and after. Noth- 
ing is known by sense, that it does not intellectually 
construct ; and so to sense-experience a mathematical 
point, and line, can be no objects. But to the reason, 
a limit is an object as truly as the limited, the centre 
as well as the area, the diameter and circumference 



96 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

of a pure circle as clearly as a material rod or ring. 
Reason has objects to itself, thus, which can be no 
objects of sense ; and hence, when it has its own pe- 
culiar problem for solution, there should be antici- 
pated only confusion and uncertainty, if it allow the 
sense-objects to be mistaken and used for its own. 
And from just such mistakes, the absurdities as above 
adduced take their rise. 

Thus, for a first instance, reason may affirm, that 
there must be an Axle in the revolving cylinder 
which itself does not turn. And it may make it its 
problem to find and recognize such stationary axle. 
If, now, the constructing sense-faculty offer assist- 
ance and be permitted to delude by interposing its 
object, then must there occur absurdities in self- 
contradictions. The sense-object as axle of the re- 
volving cylinder has an outer and inner side, and 
has been defined by an agency that has gone all 
around it. Hence the sense-axle must be itself a 
cylinder, and have still within it the axle which does 
not revolve. But every axle to sense, however far 
it may make analysis, must be a constructed object, 
and make necessity for an infinite divisibility, and 
thus introduce the absurdities of conflicting and un- 
equal infinites. And to the sense, such proposition 
must have such self-contradiction. 

But, if we will exclude all such sense-mistaking, 
and let reason alone work her own problem, there 
can occur no absurdities. Every diameter of every 
circular plane in the cylinder revolves about its mid- 






ABSURDITIES OF SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 97 

point, and on opposite sides of that mid-point the 
movements of the two portions respectively of all 
the diameters are in opposite directions each to 
each. The midpoint is a limit between opposite 
movements, and can itself have no movement ; and 
as being the same for all the diameters of any one 
circular plane in the cylinder, it becomes a limit 
at which all the radii of that plane meet. So the 
contiguous points, limiting all the radii of all the 
circular planes in the cylinder, become a central line 
as axle to the cylinder, and which can in no part 
have any revolution. And now, this axle to the 
cylinder, as object for the reason, is a limit, arid not 
a limited ; it needs no diminution and can have none, 
nor can it open any occasion for introducing con- 
tradictory infinites. The contradiction came from 
the antinomy between sense and reason, and when 
the distinction of faculty is known, and reason is al- 
lowed to do her work in her normal way, there is 
no antinomy nor absurdity. And so with all the 
contradictory infinites that may come in, as above 
shown, in space, time, motion, and rest, &c, they 
never trouble except in the mistaking of a sense- 
limited for a reason-limit. 

Thus, when we approach the infinite by a process 
of diminution; but a different absurdity occurs when 
we go after an infinite in a process of expansion. 
The solution keeps to the same rule of putting the 
right function to the execution of the proposed 
problem. 

7 



98 



KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 



We may have an extending line and an enlar- 
ging circle, and neither can reach to limits which 
may not be surpassed. To the sense no object is 
definite till its construction is completed, and the 
longest line and largest circle may still be as in- 
finitely augmented as the least. The point has no 
more an infinite expansibility than the largest circle, 
nor is it capable of infinite extension any more than 
the longest line. The reason, however, can say of 
space, that there must be a whole which is inclusive 
of every part, and it may make it its problem to at- 
tain the knowledge of space as infinite, and therein 
know space to be an absolute whole. But if here 
there be allowed the interposition of sense-construc- 
tion, and a mistaking of sense-object for reason-object, 
there must occur delusion and absurdity. The sense- 
object must be limited all about, and there can be no 
known space except as a line is drawn through or 
around it. The reason has space with no limits, the 
sense has space only within limits, and the confound- 
ing of objects so heterogeneous must involve endless 
contradictions. 

But all possibility of such contradiction is excluded 
when the reason keeps its own object and. does its 
own work. While, as an object of sense, space comes 
within consciousness with the construction of any ob- 
ject in place, and the space goes from the conscious- 
ness with the loss of the construction in place, and 
no space is known except as some space is limited, 
yet to the reason space itself is object, with no limits 






ABSURDITIES OF SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 99 

in or about it. "Reason knows Space itself as concrete 
whole in itself, and every part adhering to its contig- 
uous part with no possibility of sundering, and that no 
part is movable from where it is, and transferable to 
any other part of space. There cannot be the putting 
of any more space into space, nor the taking of any 
space out of space, nor the adding of any more on 
to space, and thus there is no void of space to the 
reason from within or from without. Space is a unit 
to the reason, prior to any sense-construction of place, 
and there can be no extra space which is not already 
concrete in the one space. This reason-idea is the 
true Infinite, excluding all finite. So soon as we 
conceive of a sense-limited within space, we have 
spoiled the infinite and put two finites over against 
each other. Exclude all sense-place, and space itself 
is one limitless, changeless absolute, having neither 
contradiction, absurdity, nor mystery to the reason. 
The finite is as irrelevant to the reason-object as is 
the infinite to the sense-object. The contradictions 
come from misappropriating objects and functions. 
The reason works normally hei*e, but the sense can- 
not here be employed without exposing its incompe- 
tency in perpetual absurdities. 

We next take an instance of logical connection in 
Judgment, with its necessary absurdities, and the 
removal of the same effectually by the normal use 
of the Reason 

The sense apprehends only the appearances, and 
these separately and singly. When the logical judg- 



100 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



merit would put them together in things and events, 
it must go according to the order of past experience, 
and the connection of the facts as found in experi- 
ence must be taken by it as the order of nature. 
As the order has been found to be, such must be 
assumed as nature's law ; and the future is to be 
expected to go on uniformly as the past has done, 
though no inner condition is known why the next 
event might not be contradictory, and violate the 
law. One substance must sustain another, and one 
cause must produce another, and there can be no 
conceived coherency save as one fact is interposed 
to support or draw another. But the reason may 
say that nature itself is a unit, and has all its bal- 
ancing statics and working dynamics in its own 
being, and it may make it its problem to find its de- 
termined persistency in connection with its perpetual 
mutabilities. 

If, ttien, the logical faculty be allowed to operate, 
the world must hold its rocks and mountains, and the 
elephant must hold the world, and the tortoise must 
hold the elephant, and thus onward. So also, the 
planet must control the satellite-revolutions, and the 
central sun must control the planetary revolutions, 
and a higher centre must control the solar systems ; 
and we can have no alternative to perpetual inter- 
positions with no ultimate. And so also with the 
series of conditioned sequences ; the logic must leap 
from step to step with no final landing-stair. But if 
we exclude the impertinent logical interference, and 






ABSURDITIES OF SENSE TRUE IN THE REASON. 101 

let the reason do the work with its insight of con- 
servative, correlative, and equivalent forces, the 
universe will stand in balanced stability, and move 
in complicated harmony, with no possibilities of disas- 
ter, nor absurdities of impossible expedients. Every 
part of the universal force pushes and pulls, just as 
it is pushed and pulled ; and no part can be lost, nor 
stand isolate, nor tip unequally in any direction. The 
whole is determined from its own centre ; and every 
substance has its stability, and every cause its effi- 
ciency, in its own place and in connection with the 
whole. 

And here, if reason asks further for a Creator of 
this universal force, which is substance for all that 
stands and cause for all that moves, and excludes the 
logical faculty from interfering in the question, the 
answer will be both consistent and prompt; while 
if the logical iaculty meddle in the matter, the whole 
is confounded with assumptions of a First cause, that 
has its necessitated conditions within it at the first, 
as truly as in any subsequent member of the series. 
The reason knows a Cause in Liberty; guiding him- 
self by what he knows is due to his own dignity ; 
and can thus begin and go out to an end in his own 
determination. And therein he is both originator and 
finisher of the work that shall most glorify and honor 
himself. 

In all cases, the Reason has sufficient light in itself 
to guide in its own work, and eliminate all the absur- 
dities of the meddling Sense and logical Judgment. 



102 



KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 



3. Distinction between knowing Thoughts and 
knowing Things. — Both science of Thought and sci- 
ence of Thing, are alike complete comprehension in 
reason, and thus both are true knowledge. But a 
prime difference between them is in this, that the 
science of thought is of that which is wholly within 
and essentially subjective, while the science of thing 
is of that which is overt and essentially objective. — 
One may have in thought a mathematical triangle or 
circle, and while the figure may condition other fig- 
ures in subjective place and period, it cannot resist 
and react upon other figures themselves. I can put 
two equal triangles or circles to coincide in thought 
with each other, and the one will then be wholly lost 
in the other. All the energy is in the thinking, and 
no energy goes over into the thought to give to it any 
rigidity or stable consistency. And in the same way, 
one may have in mental conception any color or 
sound, and which may have its conditioning rela- 
tionships of place and period with other conceptions, 
but the mere conceptions may be modified in any 
way among themselves with no mutual resistances 
and interferences. The conception has in itself no 
hard consistency, and all the energy is in the sub- 
jective thinking process, with none put over and 
persisting in the stated thought. — But when one 
has the plan of a house, or other complicated struc- 
ture, in subjective thought, and he essays to put the 
plan in execution as a fixed thing, there is an en- 
ergy other than the thinking demanded, even an 



DISTINCTION IN KNOWING THOUGHT ^ND THING. 103 

energizing which moves muscle, and applies hard 
instrumentalities in shaping and placing materials 
together ; and only in overcoming the resistance in 
the material elements can the thought-out plan be- 
come an existing thing. The subjective thinking 
energy which made the plan has been supplemented 
by an executive will, whose energy has gone over 
into a controlling arrangement of resisting elements, 
and made them overtly to express the plan as now 
an existing thing. Subjective thinking-energy, sup- 
plemented by subjective willing-energy, has been put 
into essentially objective materials, and the product 
is an objective existence in common for all in- 
telligences. — But still further, one may trace the 
growth of a grain of wheat from its first germinating 
to its perfect maturing, and while the insight of rea- 
son will detect a thought diffused through the organ- 
ism of the plant, yet has not the subjective thinking 
put the ideal into the plant, nor has the subjective will 
supplemented the thinking and forced the component 
elements in construction, but an actual living germ 
has by its native energy built up the plant, and forced 
the component elements to their outer expression of 
the hidden idea, which the seed originally contained. 
Here, then, are three different processes of thought, 
and all have the complete comprehension of their man- 
ifold parts in one, and are each thus a true knowing. 
The first has no other energy than the subjective 
thinking, and is pure thought only. The second has 
the energy of the subjective thinking ; but another 



101 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 

subjective energy than thinking, even an executive 
willing, must overcome the resisting energy already 
in the elements and arrange them according to the 
thought, and the product is an artificial thing. The 
third has the ideal thought as seen already in the 
object, and which has been put there by a power in 
nature itself that has built up the outer object by 
the inner working of its own forces, and is thus a 
natural thing. But while all these have true science, 
whether of thought or thing, inasmuch as all have 
the many comprehended in a single, yet can these 
objects be known as created only in a qualified sense, 
except in the last case, which is a true creation. The 
pure thought is a creation only as we say a creation 
of the imagination, or the creations of genius ; the 
artificial thing is a creation only as a construction 
from created materials ; but the natural thing, though 
in its generations a propagated thing, is truly a cre- 
ated thing, and all its energies of elemental material, 
and organizing instinct according to original type, are 
product of absolute thought and will first springing 
into being from the one All-creating source. 

A stated thought, no matter how objectively it may 
obtrude itself upon the subjective consciousness, as 
in dreams, or hallucination, or prolonged reverie, is 
no created thing ; nor should any logical process in 
positing its steps from stage to stage be termed a 
creating, since nothing is so produced and stablished 
that it can stand out from the subject thinking and 
become a common possession for other thinking sub- 



DISTINCTION IN KNOWING THOUGHT AND THING. JO") 

jects. A created flung has not only the imparted 
thought of the creator, but superinduced upon the 
energy thinking is also an energy imperatively will- 
ing the thought to stand in hard and rigid resistance 
to any encroachment. Only thus can the thought be- 
come essentially overt, and fill its place and period 
as in a common space and time for other beholders. 
The resisting energy must be in the thing and con- 
stitute its very essence, and not be merely the sub- 
jective energy of the thinking process. We can 
thus have no true knowledge of created things, ex- 
cept as we comprehend them in the very essential 
energies which constitute them ; and we can have 
no true knowledge of their creator, except as in 
the things we see the thought the creator has put 
there, and also see this superinduced power that has 
fixed the thought in stable consistency against all 
aggression. It is not created thing without thought, 
for then it could be no object for intelligence ; nor is 
it mere thought, for then it could not become com- 
mon object ; nor yet is it mere thought put into hard 
material, which would only be a new fashioning of 
old material ; but it must be the creator's thought, 
fixed overtly for all by the creator's imperative will. 

Other and beyond the science of thought, and the 
science of artificial thing, we have here the science 
of nature, as essential thing in itself, and know how 
we know the particular things of nature, and univer- 
sal nature itself, as one thing. The manifold in Sense 
is sorted in the Judgment and comprehended in the 



106 



KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 



Reason, and is seen to have already an energy in pos- 
session and exertion which works the unity above and 
distinct from the thinking-energy. The dewdrop and 
the crystal have their expressed thought, but beyond 
the manifested ideal in their formation is the essential 
force ensphering the drop and solidifying the crystal 
angles, and completing the things by an inner energy 
different from thinking. And in the same way of an 
inner force the worlds are formed, and all worlds made 
a universe ; expressing a thought, but working out 
the expression by an energy that supplements all 
thinking. The mechanical forces in nature, and the 
organic forces in living bodies, work after an ideal ; 
bat their work is other than idealizing. The Creator 
has thought, but he has willed this into overt exist- 
ence by an energy distinct from thought. A creator 
of realities is other than a thinker of ideals, and more 
than a former of material bodies, — even an author of 
matter itself. 



CHAPTER III. 



EEASON KNOWS THE CKEATOR. 



All knowing takes the manifold in mass, distributes 
the particulars according to their sort, and compre- 
hends them in a single individuality. The Sense, in 
common experience, takes the manifold ; the Judg- 



A CREATOR MUST BE UNCONDITIONED. 107 

inent puts the particulars into their classified sorts ; 
and the Reason gets the inner connective bond which 
makes the sorted manifold a concrete individual. But 
we are now to know in the Reason only, and thus this 
invariable process of simple apprehension, and assort- 
ing judgment, and individualizing reason, is to be the 
work of reason exclusive of sense and logical under- 
standing, and must necessarily be quite peculiar ; and 
this peculiarity it is now the special design to notice. 
In the Rational Psychology and the Introduction to 
the Rational Cosmology respectively, different meth- 
ods were taken for attaining the Absolute Being ; but 
with no expression of opinion concerning the com- 
parative merits of either, a third method will here be 
taken to know the Absolute as Creator in the very 
being of Reason itself. 

1. A Creator must be Independent op any Im- 
posed Conditions. — Given an Acorn in its essential 
germ, and from experience we infer a pi'eceding oak ; 
and so also, given an Oak, and from experience we in- 
fer a preceding acorn. But experience finds nothing 
in either the acorn or the oak, which conditions the 
successions that experience has observed ; and all 
that it can reveal is the sequence of acorns and oaks 
as a fact of as long continuance as the history of ex- 
perience is recorded. It may call one prior and the 
other successor, but this will be wholly arbitrary, for 
nothing distinguishes in this respect the one from the 
other. Taking the oak and looking back, the acorn 



108 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

has been prior; and takiug the acorn and looking 
back, the oak has been prior. Experience cannot 
teach which is essentially prior, nor that there ever 
has been a prius, nor say why at all acorns and oaks 
succeed each other. It gives the bare fact of succes- 
sion from its history, and explains nothing. 

Experience under the promptings of a rational en- 
dowment, even while the distinctive characteristics 
of such an endowment are as yet unrecognized, will 
have put a somewhat between the acorn and oak, or 
in them both, which will have settled the conviction 
that the succession observed has by that somewhat 
been made necessary ; and it may call that interposed 
somewhat the cause of the succession, and attempt, 
perhaps, thereby, in a quasi philosophy, to explain the 
fact of successive oaks and acorns. But in this re- 
striction of all knowledge to experience, the necessary 
connective cause must be remanded to experience for 
its validity, and if admitted that no sense can bring 
it into experience, there must still be the supposition 
of some sublimated sense-object, which some finer 
and nicer organ might seize and envisage. But 
even if so attained, it would be only a fact found, 
that this sublimated somewhat succeeded one and pre- 
ceded the other, and could explain nothing of neces- 
sary connection, and only add itself as a new item in 
the sequences which will need its necessary connec- 
tion as much as the mere sequence of oaks and 
acorns. 

And admit now, which we may hereafter present 



A CREATOR MUST BE UNCONDITIONED. 109 

for clearer contemplation, that the reason, as higher 
faculty, may by its insight into oaks and acorns know 
this somewhat we term Cause to be wholly other than 
any sense-object, and that it carries intrinsically with it 
an efficiency to make the one to come out of the other, 
this deeper reason-insight might then philosophically 
explain the necessary connections ; but even that 
would only so far be expounding nature, and would 
be no knowledge of how such efficiency came into 
nature, nor could at all teach how oaks and acorns 
came into being, or any other objects in nature, that 
they should need necessary connecting causes. Even 
should reason be able to go further, and see in the 
oak or the acorn that which determined that this and 
not the other must be prior, this would not explain 
how that prior came to be, nor satisfy the reason, 
whether the prior were oak or acorn, that such deter- 
mined prior made both itself and all the others. ' We 
should herein get the philosophy of nature, but should 
not by anything in nature so get the knowledge of 
nature's Creator. 

An assumed first cause must still be conditioned 
cause, in the same way that an assumed first acorn 
must be conditioned to pi-oduce an oak and not a chest- 
nut, or an assumed first oak must be conditioned to 
bear acorns and not chestnuts. What is to come from 
the cause must necessarily be already essential in the 
cause, and this as truly in a first as in any successor 
of the series. The question of creation is, How the 
first can begin to be? and if conditions are imposed 



110 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

upon it, it is creature, and not creator. And the same 
is true of substantial being standing under and con- 
ditioning the qualities. When the steam has been 
condensed to water, and the water again changed in 
congelation to ice, the respective qualities have been 
conditioned in their substances, and whichever way 
we follow the change, we must put under the new 
qualities the new substantial ground ; but the ques- 
tion now is, How substance itself begins to be ? If 
it have already conditions under it, it is created sub- 
stance, and not creator of substance. Both in assumed 
first cause and first substance the conditions are al- 
ready there, forcing us to go higher ; but experience 
cannot transcend conditions, and hence no empirical 
data can give a creator in the conclusion. 

2. The Finite Reason can from Itself know the 
Universal. — With no sense-content, and no conclud- 
ing in logical judgments from empirical data, the pure 
reason-knowing is solely from itself. Looking into its 
own being, it determines immediately from what it 
knows in itself what also must be conditional that 
other beings may be known. The reason-knowing is 
not looking on and around, but in and through, and 
thus is not Apprehension, but Insight. When sense- 
objects are given, it sees in them that space and time 
are conditional that they themselves may be ; and 
when sense-objects are connected in things and their 
changes to a series of events, it sees in them that sub- 
stantial and causal forces are conditional that such 



REASON KNOWS THE UNIVERSAL. Ill 

ordered connections should be. But when no sense- 
objects are given, and no conditions of space and time 
or substantial and causal forces are determined by 
any insight, there is a sphere of knowing other than 
that which belongs to space and time, substances and 
causes, viz., a pure reason-sphere in which the con- 
ditions are attained solely by the finite reason having 
self-insight. The reason thus knows solely in reason's 
own light ; and in this sphere it is that the finite rea- 
son knows the Universal Reason. 

Finite reason standing alone in its own individuality 
has its peculiar measure, and so its self-insight has its 
peculiar clearness, compass, and systematic consisten- 
cy, and so, too, each finite intelligence has knowl- 
edge peculiarly his own, and not another's, and where- 
in the knowing is relative to himself, and is not 
properly universal. Thus there is a good meaning in 
which mathematic or philosophy or spiritual truth is 
individual, and peculiar to each particular conscious 
insight. But there is a higher and equally valid 
meaning, which excludes all individual peculiarity, 
and in which there is but one mathematic, one philoso- 
phy, one truth for every rational miud. In such ac- 
ceptation there is no particular appropriation, but 
the known truth is universal. Individuality stands in 
some other ground than the being of rationality, for 
there is one reason common to all humanity. Indi- 
vidual finite reason, looking into itself, and knowing 
its own peculiarities, is competent to see in itself also 
a universal ; and to know that conditional for its valid 



112 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

knowing, besides the finite and relative reason which 
is its own, there must be a Universal Reason which is 
not its own, but only as it is common to all. 

In this Universal Reason, the finite and individual 
reason can see, there must be the ground and source of 
all truth. Each mind's truth must have, for its validity 
in the knowing, that which is true in Universal Rea- 
son. Only in this universal can anything particular 
be stable. No individual reason can be allowed to 
stand indifferent to, and much less in opposition to, 
the Universal ; for what is not positively for, is essen- 
tially against Universal Reason, and in that has be- 
come unreason, and must be everywhere repudiated 
and rejected by reason. But that any known truth 
stands full in the Universal Reason is sufficient for its 
validity. The last and highest reason for the validity 
of any knowing is, that what it knows is Universally 
reasonable. All demonstration is defective which 
is not carried back to its root in Universal Reason ; 
and all testimony is insufficient to give knowledge to 
faith, till the testimony is seen to be squarely in 
accordance with that reason which is one for all. 
Individual mind thus knows the Universal mind ; 
that it is ; what it is, in attribute and essential perfec- 
tion, though no finite can measure the fulness of the 
Universal. So it is that inspiration affirms we " know 
the deep things of God " by the spirit given to us. Not 
in that God-consciousness in which God is illumined 
to himself, but in our endowment of reason we see 






THE UNIVERSAL REASON A PERSON. 113 

the being of the Godhead. The individual human 
knows from within himself the Divine Universal. 

3. The Universal Reason is a Person. — All 
complete knowledge involves the taking of manifold 
elements, separating and sorting them, and finally com- 
prehending them in Unity. So the individual finite 
reason, if at all, must know the Universal Reason ; 
and the finite may so know the Universal as to see in 
it that the Universal must be personal. The following 
successive positions, carefully and intelligently taken, 
will carry the insight from Reason in Universality to 
Reason as a Person. 

Universal Reason must contain all elementary truth, 
and all assortments possible of the Universal Elements, 
and all consistent comprehensions of sorted particulars 
in Unity ; and in this the Universal Reason has in 
possession all possible Ideas. The original Ideas are 
subjective in Reason, and so uncommunicated, and in 
themselves incommunicable. 

In such origination of Ideas, Reason is essentially 
artistic, and cannot be satisfied with a solitary per- 
petual gaze upon its subjective Ideas, but must have 
a calm urgency towards expressing them. And also, 
in such origination, Reason is essentially good, and 
must have a loving interest in communicating the 
Ideas. Such urgency and interest must induce an 
ethical behest for their overt manifestation ; and for 
this, Reason must itself be competent, or as unsatisfied 
it will become unreason. 
8 



114 KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOE. 

An actual expression including communication of 
ideas involves both Idea set forth and Idea taken, and 
thus a reason-giving and a reason-recei ving,and so there 
must be several rational beings, and each apprehend- 
ing the Idea in common, and which alone can constitute 
a standing together in community. Intelligent recipi- 
ents of the original Ideas must, therefore, be brought 
into being in the likeness of the Universal Reason, 
and therein competent to participate in the conscious 
possession of the thoughts of Universal Reason. 

These severally existing intelligences cannot com- 
mune with the Universal Reason while the original 
Ideas remain in subjective secrecy, but the Ideas must 
be set forth in an existing, outstanding Universe ; and 
while the intelligences must be in the image of Uni- 
versal Reason, the stable existences must also be in the 
likeness of the original Ideas ; and in this whole work 
we shall have the complex Universe in the two worlds 
of matter and of mind, in which Universal Reason has 
expressed the Ideas, and to which the constituted 
intelligences come in participation, and thereby the 
Universal Reason and the constituted intelligences 
may stand together in satisfactory communion. 

The finite reason sees in such Universal Reason 
complete self-possession and self-sufficiency. All pos- 
sible resources are within it, arid it can be helped or 
hindered by nothing without. It stands to itself 
throughout in perfect freedom. No force can compel, 
no want can constrain, no master can coerce its move- 
ment. No necessity can apply to it a physical must; 






PERSONA LTTY OF REASON ABSOLUTE. 115 

nor authority impose upon it a peremptory shall; and 
only the ought, as that which is due to its own dignity, 
can prompt and guide its agency ; and so its work is 
not at all what it must, or what it shall, but solely 
what it will accomplish. Such inner disposing of all 
inherent possessing and outer communicating is Will 
in Liberty; and the whole is compi-ehensively held 
within its own law of freedom. Its spring to action 
and its end of action are both wholly within itself, and 
its being and doing is alone in its Eternal reasonable- 
ness. It summons its powers in requisition for its 
own Excellency's sake, and sends them to the attain- 
ment of its own honor; and thus its own mandate, 
sounding through its whole being, makes it eminently 
and discriminatingly to be Person. In this view we 
are henceforth to speak of Reason as He and not It. 

4. The Personality op Reason is also Absolute. 
— " He is before all things, and by him all things con- 
sist," and thus nothing outside of him can limit, con- 
strain, or in any way impose conditions upon him ; 
and in this meaning it is that we say the Person of 
Reason is Absolute. He is absolved from all coaction 
from every quarter. The Universe depends upon 
him, but has no reagencies holding him under any 
duress. His absoluteness relates to a variety of 
particulars which may be separately considered, ac- 
cording to their peculiarities. His being is absolute, 
as wholly underived and independent. His sovereignty 
is absolute, as amenable to no authority. His agency 



116 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



is absolute, as beyond all force. His blessedness is 
absolute, as beyond all possible perturbation. We 
will subject these particulars severally to the insight 
of reason for its abundant confirmation. Carefully 
and clearly contemplated, the absoluteness of Uni- 
versal Reason in these respects cannot have the 
shadow of a doubt. 

1. His Being is Absolute. It is impossible to sup- 
pose a source from whence Reason should be derived. 
If Reason once was not, then only unreason was, and the 
only source whence Reason could come would be the 
absurdity of his origin from unreason. He cannot be 
supposed not to be. To say that reason is not, would 
involve the necessity that still reason should be, in 
order that the declaration might have any true mean- 
ing. To say that once He might not have been, is to 
suppose that his opposite must then have been ; and 
the opposite of reason cannot be supposed without 
at the same time supposing reason as the determiner 
of what his opposite is. 

Again, Reason is not on account of something else, 
nor by the help of something else, nor through the 
sufferance of something else. However others may 
be, or whether others be or not be, yet reason must 
be : for his supposed non-being is an impossibility, 
inasmuch as, if his non-being were affirmed to be true, 
this very truth would still confirm that he is. The 
truths which the light of reason gives are no products 
of power, but are independent of power, and are liable 
to no interference from power, and these truths 



PERSONALITY OF REASON ABSOLUTE. 117 

which are beyond all power, and by which all power 
must be controlled, cannot themselves be but as 
reason also is. 

We say, therefore, of the Universal Reasou, that he is 
self-existent, not in the acceptation that his self makes 
his existence, but that being is so necessarily his that 
no applied power can make him not to be. Nor are 
these absurdities, from any supposition of the non- 
being of reason, the result of any logical illusion, for 
it is not logic that has at all been here in use, and 
only the insight of reason ; so that the function of 
reason itself must be perverted to absurdities and 
contradictions before it can be admitted that the 
being of reason is dependent on anything. That 
there is reason for anything, yea, that tbere is reason 
for doubting everything, still leaves it impossible to 
doubt that reason himself is. The Absoluteness of 
the being of Reason is thus guarded on all sides by 
endless absurdities and impossibilities that he should 
not be. His appropriate name is, " I am." 

2. His Sovereignty is Absolute. Absolute sovereignty 
does hot imply arbitrary sovereignty. Sovereignty im- 
ports Authority, and this is the same as being author- 
ized, or rightly founded. We cannot therefore say of 
the sovereignty of Universal Reason, what we have 
just shown of his being, that it is every way un- 
limited and underived ; for that would involve the 
intrinsic absurdity of Authority unauthorized. Such 
an Absolute would admit of going opposite ways, and 
to opposite ends, and yet be Authority still ; and 



118 KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 

which can be nothing but the absurdity of Arbitrary 
Authority. Authority must be authorized ; supported 
and justified by reason; hence of authority we cannot 
say, as we said of being, that Universal Reason is 
beyond all conditioning control. Still the sovereign 
authority is Absolute when it rests only in the being 
of reason himself. 

A logical process to get ultimate Authority for 
Sovereignty would involve necessary absurdity ; for 
it would derive Authority from a source that wpuld 
still come from another, and no assumed last source 
could be ultimate. But the Universal Reason knows 
his right to reign in sovereignt}^ from just what he is 
in his own being. Knowing himself, he knows it is 
his to be sovereign, and not subject. What he is, in 
his conscious intrinsic excellency, authorizes him to 
take the throne and hold the sceptre, and absolves 
him from all allegiance to any other sovereignty. He 
truly reigns in his own right, and cannot rightly 
alienate his sovereignty. Finite reason, superinduced 
upon sensibility, legitimately reigns sovereign over 
appetite ; but legitmate as such Authority is, it can- 
not be said to be Absolute. The Supreme Reason 
must have absolute sway when the finite fails, and 
only where the finite is the same as the Absolute are 
they concurrent. The Supreme is ultimate, and thus 
an imperative that finds no outer source to give to it 
authority, and no higher right to take it away. The 
Supreme Reason has no sensibility to gratify, but a 
high behest to fulfil; and knowing what is due to 



PERSONALITY OF REASON ABSOLUTE. 119 

himself, he is conditioned from within, his own being, 
and absolved from all else ; and such is Absolute 
Sovereignty. 

3. The Agency is Absolute. No part, nor the whole 
of universal Force can act unconditionally. It cannot 
absolve itself from mechanical necessities. The equiv- 
alence of forces, and the conservation of force, deter- 
mine that all motion must be as already moved, and 
in force there can be no first mover, as spontaneous 
originator of movement. All movement is conditioned 
to some previous motion. But the universal reason 
can begin action from himself. Without force, and 
even against force when force is, and thus wholly 
independent of all constraint, the reason can see in 
himself what is due to himself, and can start and 
guide his action accordingly. This inner behest, 
that the reason should act for his own worthiness' 
sake, or, which is the same thing, for ultimate reason 
seen in himself, gives occasion for action without 
another to move to action, and thus to put forth 
action that shall make both force and motion to be- 
gin. Action from a conscious inner claim is self- 
action ; personal action ; voluntary action ; and when it 
can come from no higher claim than his own reason, 
it is Absolute Agency. Such action is purely spirit- 
ual, and such agent is Absolute Spirit. 

4. The Absolute Spirit is Absolutely blessed. It is 
happiness to have a constitutional sensibility, and this 
sensibility gratified. But no happiness can be abso- 
lute. It depends on condition of constitution, and 



120 KNOWLEGGE OF A CREATOR. 

congenial applications to it, and is thus necessarily 
a thing made, and must be as it happens to be made. 
Nothing of happiness can be properly blessedness; 
much less absolute blessedness. Blessedness be- 
longs to nothing but Reason, and is found only in 
the satisfying of the inward behest of reason. Grati- 
fied sensibility is happiness ; fulfilled imperative is 
righteousness, and as a fixed disposition it is holi- 
ness ; and steadfast holiness may be known as con- 
scious Blessedness. It has its own approbation, and 
the known approbation of reason everywhere. 

But human blessedness is conditioned and limited 
many ways. Even when the holiness regulating ap- 
petite is persistent, the bliss has no tranquil security. 
The sentient appetite tends to excess, and must per- 
petually be watched and guarded. Such a militant 
state cannot have unalloyed blessedness, even in 
persevering holiness. Even as angelic spirit, with 
no sentient craving, there is still the opening for 
temptation, from spiritual excesses and iniquities, to 
ambition, pride, envy, hatred, so that an angel must 
guard his virtue and perpetually rule his spirit, and 
can never reach a state of unasking tranquillity in his 
holiness. 

Not thus with the Supreme Spirit. He has per- 
petual integrity, security, and serenity. There is to 
him no possibility of assault from without or from 
within. Nothing better to him can be than fulfilling 
the claims of reason ; truly glorifying himself. He, 
therefore, " cannot be tempted of evil." He cannot 






THE ABSOLUTE CREATOR TRIUNE. 121 

turn to any good that shall to him be so good as the 
maintaining of his integrity, and thus ever maintain- 
ing and ever being reason' He is above all possible 
conflicting interferences, and is, therefore, Absolutely 
serene and tranquil in holiness. 

The only conceivable source for disturbance is in 
the sin and suffering of his creatures. His revealed 
representation of himself is as if affected thereby 
disagreeably ; even as grieved, pained, and angry. 
These representations are in conformity with human 
conceptions in like cases, but do not betoken divine 
infirmity and distressing inner commotion. Every 
feeling is still prompted by reason, and in its reason- 
ableness has security for unalloyed blessedness. 

5. The Absolute Creator is Triune. — The Ab- 
solute Reason knowing the universal in his thought, 
and therein possessing the Universe in Idea, has 
three distinct agencies in operation. The univer- 
sal has been taken in its manifoldness ; has also been 
separately arranged according to its elementary sorts ; 
and the sorted particulars have been further grasped 
in unity. There can in no other method be compre- 
hensive thought, for this process is that of rational 
comprehension. Essentially in reason there are three 
subsistent agencies, and these unite in giving to 
reason its own determinations, and the very essence 
of reason is this threefold acting. But so projecting 
the Universal Plan, or originating the Universal Idea, 
is not properly the creating of the Universe. The 



122 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



Idea must be in the Creator preliminary to bis creat- 
ing, but the expressing tbe Idea in overt, stable con- 
sistency, is alone the proper creating work. 

Strict simplicity can neither think nor will. 
Thought involves comprehension of ordered ele- 
ments, and Will involves disposition relative to ra- 
tional ends, and so neither thinking nor willing can 
consist with pure simplicity. We cannot think of, 
reason itself cannot know, a thought or a will which 
is solely simple. If, then, the agency which plans an 
ideal universe cannot be in simplicity, more emphati- 
cally may we say that the agency which is to give 
rigid reality to the Idea cannot be simple. The 
agency must be several, and the products must have 
their severality ; and yet the agency must also be 
joint as well as several, and the product must be a 
unit of severalities. We can bring neither a creat- 
ing work nor a created world into any mode of being 
known, except as in the creating and creation there 
be a manifold in Unity. And already in the essence 
of Absolute Reason we have found the severality 
and the unity of Agency which are necessary con- 
ditions for the creative work. The attainment of 
the Universal Idea in its comprehension required 
three agencies, and the setting of the idea into fixed 
reality will demand the same agencies. 

The Idea is already in actual thought, and the Will 
which perpetually maintains the actual thought, as 
the archetype of the universe, is one constant, con- 
scious, free activity. This is the superintending, 



THE ABSOLUTE CREATOR TRIUNE. 123 

guiding, authoritative agency of the whole creative 
process, and may be known as the Paternal Activity. 
It upholds, and rests in the upheld idea, and with 
this agency alone, all is hidden and secret in the 
counsels of the originally planning agencies. 

Creation is an outer manifestation of this inner 
plan, and giving to every element of it its particu- 
lar expression. The idea as thought is to be stif- 
fened and hardened in the expression to an impene- 
trable existence, and to such end an overt energizing 
must go forth into it, which shall fix the elements 
fast into permanent things. A distinct conscious 
Will must enter the Idea, and while flexible as 
thought, must give the Idea exact expression which 
shall also be impervious to any other agency, and 
make the Idea "stand fast" in rigid consistency. This 
energizing will is a constant, conscious, free activity, 
distinct from the thought-activity which states the 
idea, and yet it is its exact counterpart in every ele- 
ment of the idea, and may be known as Logos, Word, 
or Son, " by which the Father made the worlds." 

But the rigid realities, all made to exactly express 
the elemental thoughts in the idea, must further be con- 
nected through and through in comprehensive unity. 
An energy aside from that which makes them stead- 
fast must move them together in concrete consistency 
and order overtly, as the plan is connected and con- 
sistent innerly ; and which, too, must be a constant, 
conscious, free acting, in joint fellowship with the 
above idealizing and realizing agencies, fashioning 



124 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



the chaotic material to a comprehensive universal 
Cosmos. This last forming agency may be known 
as Holy Spirit. 

Each of these separate agencies has its own respec- 
tive conscious Will ; the wills distinct, but the con- 
sciousness in each a peculiar appropriation to itself 
from the one consciousness in Absolute Reason ; and 
such conscious will can be named by nothing so 
appropriate as Person. Yet while distinct in free 
activity, they are not distinct in their substantial 
being, for they are the three subsistent agencies we 
have already seen to be essentially in Reason itself, 
and go to the completion of its one being. Absolute 
Reason is essentially threefold, and as Creating Rea- 
son necessarily in threefold personality. The Cre- 
ating Spirit so knows his creating,' since thus is it in 
conformity with his essential rationality. Conscious 
free idealizing is first, and all-controlling : conscious 
free realizing is second, and all-expressing : conscious 
free individualizing is third, and all-comprehending: 
and only as human reason can see the divine idea in 
the real, and this in its real comprehension, can man 
know either the Creator or his creation. Divine 
Reason knows concurrently with his creative work ; 
the human knows in the work the thought and will 
of the Creator. The Father, whom none seeth, has 
the hidden ideal ; the " Word, with God and was 
God," expresses the ideal in reality ; and the Holy 
Spirit fashions the worlds -and binds them in a uni- 
verse, and so " garnishes the heavens." • Creation, 



THEISM DISTINGUISHED FROM PANTHEISM. 125 

correctly contemplated as from the Absolute Reason 
in essential triunity, loses its mystery, but augments 
its majesty, in its pure rationality. 

6. Theism distinct from all Forms of Pantheism. 
— Absolute Personality recognized will give Theism, 
and exclude Pantheism, no matter what the connec- 
tions of the parts of the universe to each other, nor 
how directly the universe may come from the Crea- 
tor. The product of the person will be other than 
the person, and the personality of the Maker as Abso- 
lute will exclude all external conditioning and deri- 
vation ; and thus on the one hand the creation will 
be a really objective existence, and on the other the 
Creator will be true Deity. But all methods of devel- 
ment, or evolution, will involve Pantheism and exclude 
Theism. The unfolding in any way is but a gradual 
disclosure of the one already existing' tiling ; and be- 
fore the development, the one is the All, and after the 
development, the All is still the one ; and neither the 
one nor the all can get any distinction of being. When 
the one absorbs the All, it will properly be termed 
Pantheism ; and when the All hides the one, it will 
more properly be termed Pancosmism ; but in each 
case the whole is without proper Personality, and is 
virtually Atheism. 

There are two general forms of- Pantheism, each 
having some modifications, but all will be sufficiently 
noted in making the general discrimination. One 
comes from logically following out physical law, and 



126 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



may be known as logical or physical Pantheism ; the 
other comes from finding a perpetual dialectic in all 
progressive reasoning, and striving to overcome this, 
by a transcendental synthesis, and which may be 
known as dialectical or transcendental Pantheism. 

The first form recognizes the uniformities and in. 
variable sequences of experience, and logically infers 
the future from the past, and the distant from the 
nearer observation, and concludes nature to be a 
perpetual orderly series of concomitant and succes- 
sive events, and all conditioned in their connections 
by what precedes to what must infallibly succeed. 
The material world has its connected physical causes 
and effects, and the linked series are inviolate, while 
the mental world, in its intellectual, sentient, and 
practical life, has its own history of passing events 
connected by motives and moral influences, which 
make the whole to be strictly uniform and rigidly 
inviolate. Matter and mind go on in their counter- 
part series, and together make a universe of concur- 
rent events by which all sentient experience has its 
regular laws, uniformly rewarding and punishing as 
the laws are kept or violated. Often the violation 
and penal result are seen to be the direct steps to a 
further advance, and the sins and retributions are 
really as necessaiy means of progress and coming- 
melioration as the virtues and rewards. An unerring- 
power is everywhere silently and constantly at work, 
and which no man really helps or hinders, and which 
as truly works out human destiny as material changes ; 



THEISM DISTINGUISHED FROM PANTHEISM. 127 

and man's wisdom is, so far as practicable, to fall in 
and work with it, and always to rejoice in it. 

All anxiety about supernatural agencies is but a 
weak superstition, leading invariably to philosophical, 
social, and moral perversions. There is no God out 
of Nature ; and only a God in Nature, wisely work- 
ing all nature onward in the track of destiny. No 
personality who begins and consummates can be dis- 
covered ; the inner power works out the develop- 
ment. 

The second form of Pantheism is exceedingly pro- 
found and thorough in its dialectical process. It 
finds thought in its very spring and source to be 
dialectical, having a necessary antithesis in its deep- 
est notion. All Affirmation is as truly and necessarily 
also Negation in its opposite aspect, and whatever 
position be taken, the immediate counter-movement 
must pass onward to its own Negation. To prevent 
direct self-contradiction and thus absolute scepti- 
cism, or rather utter nescience, the reason must be 
brought into see in its higher light, that the antithetic 
negation is not a direct denial nullifying the old 
position, but in fact an opening to a common syn- 
thesis between them, wherein they come together 
and close themselves in higher and richer unity 
than before. This new position is then at once a 
spring to a new form of negation, and this to a tran- 
scendental synthesis enriched by retaining all the 
former ; and thus on, by a perpetual repetition of 
new outlays and richer incomes, till the cycle comes 



128 



KNOWLEDGE OP A CREATOR. 



round into itself; and then afterwards opens into a 
broader circuit, till the last cycle of all enclosed 
cycles, when the reason is brought face to face with 
itself, in divine self-consciousness and universal being. 

This process of Absolute Thought is held to be a 
true exposition of the eternal essence antecedent to 
and in the work of creation, and giving the very 
fibres of the universe, around and upon which all 
of nature and of humanity are set. Thought is all 
that is — the highest and only knowledge and reality. 
It is God and the Universe ; God knowing himself, in 
thinking the universe. And here the error is not in 
the dialectical process, or the transcendental order of 
the higher rational logic ; for that is the most thor- 
ough, profound, and rigidly conclusive possible. But 
it makes the thinking to be all. God and the universe 
are in the thinking, and there is neither Creator nor 
created but in the thought. There is no overt agen- 
cy that forms and fixes a solid world on these thought- 
fibres, and holds it there palpably and overtly, as the 
expression of the thought and the manifestation of 
the will and wisdom of the Thinker. It is Absolute 
Thought in self-development: the world-spirit, solely 
intellectual spirit, thinking itself into a universe, and 
thereby coming to the knowledge of itself in this 
universal knowledge ; a complete Pantheistic Thought- 
development. 

To meet and demolish the first form of Pantheism 
demands a clearing of the mind from all the illusions 
of sense and experience, when attempting to carry 



THEISM DISTINGUISHED FROM PANTHEISM. 129 

our knowledge by them over into the region of the 
supernatural. If all philosophy is exhausted in ex- 
amining nature, and only assuming that the observed 
order of facts in nature is the sole warrant for 
supposing any intrinsic connections in nature, then 
must nature's ongoing be the ultimate to us, and the 
end of logic is, that the only God is nature. But 
when we have known that Absolute Reason acts ori- 
ginatingly and electively from the claim of its own 
excellency and to the end of its own dignity, we have 
at once a personal Cause in Liberty, who is above 
nature, and both the Author and Finisher of Nature. > 

And to convict the second form of Pantheism of 
its partiality and incompleteness, we need to note 
that it can have no Space and Time in common with 
human conscious experience. In it, the Absolute 
thought-development makes its own space in the 
statement of its thoughts in infinity, and its own time 
in the succession of its thoughts in eternity ; while 
all particular appearances in nature are but the stated 
and passing out-thoughts of this Absolute thinking- 
process, and can have no space and time of their own, 
and stand only in the subjective space and time of 
the Absolute thinking. 

But in common conscious experience, there is in 
each consciousness its own space and time, with which 
another does not come in communion, and also the 
consciousness of a common space and time in which 
all have their determined experience. This can be 
explicable only in the truth that nature is persistent 
9 



130 



KNOWLEDGE OF A CREATOR. 



Force in changing forms and thus determining its own 
space and time for every conscious experience, leav- 
ing each with his own subjective inner experience to 
a space and time of his own with which no stranger 
can intermeddle. 

This reason ground-work of persistent and chan- 
ging Forces is yet to be known as standing out in clear 
intelligence ; and in it we shall find both a creator's 
thought and a creator's upholding will, establishing 
the thought in exact and palpable perpetuity. Such 
a creation is the product of a Creator, who has his 
distinct personal being beyond the creating acts which 
express his inner thoughts. 



PART II. 

KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

Design and Method. — Nature has been studied 
long and patiently in the light of experience ; broad 
inductions have been made, and general judgments 
concluded ; and within their varied categories all facts 
of observation have been arranged and classified. 
Scarcely does a phenomenon now occur which has not 
already a name indicative of its assigned relation, and 
a place appropriated to it in the scientific catalogue. 
But convenient and useful as the empirical classifica- 
tions may be, like the alphabetical arrangement of 
the dictionary, they have no known connections intrin- 
sically determining the places and periods of their 
appearing, since the essence necessitating the man- 
ner and order of appearance is ignored, for this is 
held to lie in a sphere quite beyond the reach of hu- 
man attainment. And yet science is very familiarly, 
if not ostentatiously, dealing with these unknowable 
essences, as substantial forces and efficient agencies, 
working out in their inevitable sequences the results 
which appear. Certainly, the substantial forces and 
living agencies never appear in human experience, 

131 



132 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

and if we may use them at all in expounding phe- 
nomena, it must be by the exercise of an intelli- 
gence transcending all sense-experience. 

And now, not with Creation as a fact accomplished 
are we here interested, whether as actual appearance 
or as force and life working out that appearance ; we 
go back to the Creator we have found, and seek, in 
and from him, the origination and established exist- 
ence of the Force and Life which stand everywhere 
beneath the appearances coming up in human expe- 
rience. The essence is to the appearance as the 
meaning is to the word ; the sentiment is given to 
reason in the letter, but the meaning was before and 
determined what the letter must be, and both the 
meaning and the letter have their source in one 
Author. 

Creation in appearance must be in Space and Time ; 
as standing or moving in space and time, creation 
must have essential Force ; and to hold and use force 
in organic construction and agency, there must be 
Life. To know these at all, must solely be in the in- 
sight of Reason ; and we now assume what the issue 
will show, that creation given to experience may be 
determined by what Reason may know of Space and 
Time, Force, and Life. 

This Second Part will thus need three chapters : — 

Chap. I. Reason-knowledge of Space and Time. 
" II. Reason-knowledge of Force. 
" III. Reason-knowledge of Life. 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF SPACE. 133 



CHAPTER I. 

space and time. 

1. There are many different Kinds of Space. — 
There may be pure intellectual constructions of geo- 
metrical diagrams, that shall stand in the consciousness 
of the one who constructed them only. These diagrams 
of right lines, curves, and angles, making purely 
subjective objects, will have extension, and relative 
distance and direction each from each as standing in 
their places, and all together will be included in one 
space ; but as the diagrams are in the subject, so the 
space in which all are is wholly subjective. When 
such pure diagrams fade away and fall out of con- 
sciousness, the space in which they stood falls away 
from consciousness also. If, again, another set of 
pure diagrams be similarly constructed, they, too, will 
have their subjective space, and which in like manner 
will pass away when the diagrams pass out of con- 
sciousness. Now, it may be said of each such set of 
figures, that they had their own space, but it cannoi 
be said of the first set, that its figures together were 
in the same space with the figures of the second. 
There have been two spaces as truly as two sets of 
figures, and the same person may have as many dif- 



134 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

ferent spaces as he shall have separately constructed 
sets of figures. And then, too, any number of per- 
sons may construct in their own minds their separate 
sets of figures, and thereby each may have his num- 
berless distinct spaces, and neither one can put all his 
subjective spaces into one space, and much less can 
any one put all the subjective spaces in all persons 
into any one space. Here, then, is one kind of space 
in which stand the person's own pure figures, and 
which may be known as Subjective Space ; and yet this 
one kind may have infinite separate spaces in the sep- 
arate constructions of one, and of all. 

So, also, the visual organ, morbidly or from pres- 
sure, may have colored spots of different light and 
shade floating within it, and each spot will have its 
own outline defined more or less completely. With 
the spots in the organ, there will also be a space in 
which the spots appear, and all the spots will have 
their relative directions and distances each from each 
in that one space. If the eye become clear of these 
floating phantoms, the space in which they were goes 
away as the spots disappear. Should then another 
occasion give other colored spots, they would have 
a common space, but not the same space as the for- 
mer. And so other eyes may have their spots and 
spaces, and on divers occasions, and these spaces will 
be diverse, and can never be put into a common space. 
Here is another kind of space as solely Organic, and 
its separate spaces may be infinite. 

And in the same manner with mirrored spaces 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF TIME. 135 

which may be endlessly diversified ; as also dream- 
ing spaces, and telescopic spaces of different lenses, 
and ordinary phenomenal spaces, and remembered 
spaces ; in all these varieties and sub-varieties, their 
diversity can never be brought into a common 
unity. 

2. There are different Kinds of Time. — As ex- 
tension has its space within which to stand, so also 
has succession a time in which to pass. Thus, in all 
the before-mentioned kinds of space, if in each a 
series of sequences occur, there would be as many 
kinds of time, and which could none of them be made 
to stand in a common time. 

So, a person may be absorbed in an inward train 
of thought with an intensity that shall prevent all 
note of passing outer occurrences. There is a sub- 
jective time in which the successions pass, and such 
time is only for the man thinking ; and to him this 
absorption in his own thinking may pass off, and he 
again note the occurrences of outer events ; and such 
changed orders of sequences may be frequent, and 
each will have its ordered times that cannot be in a 
common time for them all ; and many men may each 
have such thinking times, and thus still less can these 
many men bring all their varied times into any one 
time. 

And so with dreaming times, and outward appear- 
ing times, and past successions made to be present 
in remembered times ; they all differ in kind, and may 






136 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



all be in all men, and no one can arrange them all in 
any one time. 

We may thus say of space, that there are many 
kinds of spaces, and the many cannot be put into 
any one space ; and of time, that there are many 
kinds, and the many cannot come into any common 
time. And yet, we perpetually speak of space and 
of time as each one Space and one Time. With this 
notice of the many spaces and times, it might seem 
impossible that we should know the one Space and 
one Time. 



3. The Constructions op Sense give Extension and 
Succession only. — The constructing agency works 
in the light of consciousness, and hence knows what 
it is doing, and what it has done ; but its knowing is 
only in the doing, and in the product of the work, 
and not anything a priori of the doer, or of the con- 
tent as material used. Hence the attending, or intel- 
lectually constructing or defining agency knows only 
the extensions and the successions which its conjoin- 
ing acts have put together, and it works the same in 
one field as in another. It may be in pure subjective 
consciousness constructing its mathematical diagrams, 
or with any content or morbid affection in any sense 
organ, or from a mirror, or in a dream, and the line 
or figure it describes will be the extension that it 
knows, or the sequence that the progressive move- 
ment joins will be the succession that it knows, 
and merely as constructing agency, the products are 






LOGICAL JUDGMENT ATTAINS PLACE AND PERIOD. 137 

either extension or succession, and that is all that ap- 
pears in the consciousness. The distinguishing agen- 
cy may discriminate the contents used, and thus may 
separate pure lines, or colored lines, or tangible lines, 
&c, as also pure sequences, or colored sequences, 
&c, from each other ; but all that has any bearing 
upon the knowing of space and time is in the con- 
structing, and not in the distinguishing operation. 
Were there, then, nothing further than merely sense- 
attention, the only apprehension there could be 
towards the taking of space and time in the con- 
sciousness, would be that of Extension in conjoin- 
ing points, and that of Succession in passing through 
points, let the points as content used be what they 
might. 

4. The logical Judgment gives Place and Period 
only. — When the conjoining sense has apprehended 
extension and succession, the logical understanding 
can further operate upon the appearing extensions 
and successions, and thereby carry the intellectual 
work further on towards the cognition of space and 
time. The limited extension of any kind, say here 
of a colored cube, or the limited succession of any 
kind, say here of consecutive red, orange, and green 
colors, may be subjected to the function of abstrac- 
tion, and if the colored cube, as content in sensation, 
be taken away, there will remain its pure Place in 
the consciousness ; and if also the consecutive red, 
orange, and green be abstracted, there will remain 



138 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

their pure Period in the consciousness ; and thus by 
abstraction Ave come to cognize place and period. 
But in this process we know only the place which 
the cube filled, and the period which the movement 
through the red, orange, and green occupied. 

But such abstract places and periods may now, in 
a similar way, be apprehended in any number and 
variety, and the arranging and combining Judgment 
may give to them any possible conjunctions, and so 
far as the combinations go, there will be known the 
place filled by all, and the period occupied by all. 
But the knowledge cannot go beyond the places so 
filled and the periods so occupied. If there is a 
chasm in the extensions or successions, that chasm 
cannot be known as place or period ; and if the ex- 
tensions or successions terminate, there cannot be 
known either place or period beyond the termina- 
tions. So much place as is filled by all known 
places is known, and so much period as is occupied 
by all known periods is also known ; but nothing 
of place or period is known beyond this. Places 
within a larger place, and periods within a larger 
period, we know by regular logical process ; but we 
cannot carry our logical conclusions any further 
than we fill place and occupy period. All that the 
logical Judgment can possibly know of space is a 
place filled with places, and all that it can know of 
time is a period filled with periods, and which at the 
utmost is a knowledge of place and of period. The 
place known still is extension ; and the period known 



REASON ONLY ATTAINS SPACE AND TIME. 139 

still is succession ; and the extension cannot be 
space, for it wants a space within which the exten- 
sion may stand ; and the succession cannot be time, 
for it wants a time within which the successions 
may pass. No possible extension is space, for it 
must itself be already stretched out in space, and 
no possible succession is time, for it must already 
itself be passing in time. We might, on the other 
hand, analyze the places and periods, and strive to 
get out of place into space, and out of period into 
time, by diminishing ; but the most we could reach 
would be the points in place, and the moments in 
period, and these would still be in space and time, 
and not themselves space and time. 

5. The Reason only can know Space and Time. 
— It is the office and prerogative of Reason to look 
into all that Sense apprehends and Understanding 
conjoins, and shut all together as comprehended in 
one. And just this the reason does in its knowing 
of Space and Time. Where the apprehension is of 
diverse points or diverse instants, there may be 
constructed limited extensions and limited succes- 
sions, and the understanding may conjoin the par- 
ticular extensions and successions according to any 
appearances in experience. The places of the ex- 
tensions and the periods of the successions may be 
thus conjoined to any amount of place and period, 
and it will but put box over box to make up a nest 
of boxes, or link upon link to make a chain of links. 






140 KNOWLEDGE OF CEEATION. 

But the biggest box the understanding may conjoin 
will still be in place, and that place not space, but 
in space ; and the longest chain the understanding 
may put together will still be in period, and that 
period not time, but in time. And this space which 
holds all places, or this time which contains all 
periods, is respectively object only for the reason. 
That, according to its comprehending function, shuts 
all places in a single which is space, and all periods 
in a single which is time. And this the reason does 
with any extensions constructed in any places, and 
any successions conjoined in any periods, and thus 
gives its kind of space for the kind of place, and its 
kind of time for the kind of period, whether of sub- 
jective, organic, mirrored, &c, spaces, or whether of 
thinking, dreaming, &c, times. The space and time 
are no aggregates of places and periods, but are 
each a concrete single, with no limits, internal nor 
external. 

To the reason, thus, space and time respective- 
ly comprehend each its own manifold in one, and 
that one can no more be separated into parts than 
the parts can aggregate themselves into a single. 
Limited or divided space and time is as much an 
absurdity and impertinent assumption to the Reason, 
as limitless place or limitless period is to the logical 
Judgment. The limited place cannot be, but there 
must already be the limitless space in which it may 
be ; and the limited period cannot be, but already 
there must be the limitless time in which it may be. 



SAMENESS OP SPACE AND TIME. 141 

Space and Time are no abstractions, nor generaliza- 
tions, nor logical deductions, but necessary compre- 
hensions of the reason wherever there are diversities 
in extension or in succession, the former for space 
and the latter for time. 

6. Sameness op Space and Time can be known 
only in the continuity op the extension and suc- 
CESSION. — The dreaming space, and the dreaming 
time, are each one and tlie saino so long as the ex- 
tensions and successions in the dream continue, but 
the space and the time are both lost when the ex- 
tensions and successions in the dream cease. What 
makes two dreams is the two spaces and times in 
the dreams, and these will occur in the sundering of 
the extensions and successions. And just so with 
our waking experience ; the space and the time are 
one and the same while the extensions and succes- 
sions in phenomena continue, but the waking space 
and time are as truly cut off in going into a dream, 
as the dreaming space and time on awaking from the 
dream. Whenever the extension or the succession 
in consciousness stops short, the space and the time 
are gone ; and when they again begin, a new space 
and a new time begin ; and we can never put the 
two spaces in one, and the two times in one, till we 
somehow bring the extensions and successions to 
join themselves across the chasm. Each man has 
as many spaces and times as he has interruptions 
of conscious extensions and successions, and he can 



142 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



only bring his experience into one space and one 
time by somehow knowing that the extensions and 
successions still continued while he was unconscious 
of them. 

And so of any two men, or of all men ; they cannot 
know that their separate experiences are in the same 
one space and the same one time, except as they 
somehow know that they all have the same con- 
tinuity of extensions and successions. Every man 
would live only in his own space and his own time, 
and could have no common space and time with his 
feliows, did he not somehow know that his and their 
extensions and successions were the same. The 
space and the time go with the extensions and 
successions; coming with them, staying so long as 
they continue, and dying out when they fade away 
from the consciousness. Make the extensions and 
successions Continuous, and you will have the same 
space and time for one man and for all men. 



7. This Continuity of Extension and Succession 
can only be known through some permanent in 
Nature. — In every man's experience, phenomenal 
extensions and successions are frequently being inter- 
rupted, and he cannot keep his own space and his 
own time one and the same by his phenomenal ex- 
perience. All men have each their varied phenom- 
enal extensions and successions, and they could never 
live in communion in the same space and time, if 
all rested upon their phenomenal experiences. The 



SAMENESS OF SPACE AND TIME. 143 

history of different generations has necessarily fre- 
quent and long breaks in the continuity of phenom- 
enal extensions and successions, and we could never 
keep tho same space and time for the ages, if we had 
only the fragmentary records of past phenomenal ex- 
perience. The fabled Wandering Jew, that carries 
the curse of immortality from the Crucifixion to the 
Judgment, might keep awake in perpetual conscious- 
ness of surrounding extensions and passing succes- 
sions, and carry down one space and one time from the 
first, till space and time should be no more ; but even 
his one space and one time would be for himself only, 
and no other could commune with him in his one 
space and time, any more than they could in the 
awful experience to which his impiety had doomed 
him. And so it must be with the Absolute logic of 
the Critical thought-process; it has the one Space 
and one Time for the Absolute world-spirit, but 
no other spirit in its free and philosophic dialectical 
movement can come within the Absolute space and 
time, or have any other than each his own space and 
time. 

It is only in the knowledge of a Permanent that 
keeps its own place, and gives its own phenomenal 
extensions to the same man in his experience, and 
to all men always in all experience, that can give 
the same space to one man, and a common space to 
all men. And it is only one perduring source of all 
successions for one man and all men, that can give 
the same time to one man, and a common time to all 



144 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

men. When all come to this Permanent for their ex- 
tensions and successions, then all have one common 
space and one common time. 

8. This Permanent may still admit op great Modi- 
fications of the one Space and the one Time. — This 
permanent in nature, which will give its extended 
and successive objects for one and all, still gives its 
Space and Time for the phenomenal experience only, 
and as the phenomena may have their peculiarities 
from peculiarity of organic constitution, so the Space 
and Time may have corresponding peculiar modifica- 
tions. The appearances in the heavens above and 
on the earth beneath are the sense-affections in all 
organs, from the same permanent efficiencies that 
constitute the heavens and the earth in their inner 
essence, and must thus give the same impressions 
relatively to the same organs ; and in this respect 
all will be in the same space and the same time ; 
but the different constitutional organism may give 
the appearances to be quite different to different 
men, and indeed at different experiences to the same 
man. Just as the same landscape will give its dif- 
ferent appearances through changed media, so the 
same substantial world may give different affections 
through varied organs. The eye of one may differ 
from another as telescopes differ, and the auditory 
apparatus may differ in different persons as drum- 
heads differ in tension and vibration, and thus the 
subjective affections may be widely dissimilar; and 






ABSOLUTE SPACE AND TIME. 145 

where the extensions and successions are unlike, 
there the spaces and times will be unlike. The 
space of the same landscape seen through the 
changed ends of the same telescope may be said 
to be in both cases the same space, but the modifi- 
cations are quite wide apart in the two cases. And 
in a similar way, the successions may be largely 
modified by making the same motion appear through 
differently magnified representations. Even, thus, in 
a common space and a common time, the extensions 
and successions having modified appearances, the 
common space and time will have also their modifi- 
cations. 

9. The Extension and Succession in the Substan- 
tial ITSELF GIVE, IN THE EeASON, ABSOLUTELY ONE 

Space and one Time. — Here is still a deeper view, 
and here space and time come out one and the same 
for all intelligences. The substantial world persists 
in perfect conservation through all its inner changes, 
and aside from all peculiarity of organism, the reason 
gives sameness to nature's places and periods. This 
secures the knowledge of the one Space as containing 
all the places, and the one Time as containing all the 
periods of the one substantial, universal Nature. 

And yet, it is to be carefully noted, that as place 
and period pass away in the passing away of phe- 
nomenal extension and succession, so would the 
reason-space and -time pass away • in the annihila- 
tion of Universal Nature. The reason-space and 
10 



146 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

-time is known in the insight of the essential, 
noumenal, extension and succession, and if these 
cease, their space and time cease from the reason- 
consciousness. The absolutely self-same space and 
time, respectively, of universal nature for all intelli- 
gences is still no absolute space and time for all 
possible universes. Were the present Universe con- 
ceived as annihilated, and all her extensions and 
successions abolished, then must the veritable space 
and time of this Universe pass away in its annihila- 
tion. Were we to conceive that another Universe 
came into existence, this would have for all rational 
intelligences its absolutely self-same space and time 
for all, but no one could put the spaces and times of 
the two universes into one space and one time, nor 
possibly say where or when one universe was, rel- 
atively to the other. No consciousness has both 
in its one light, and only the one that is ; and we 
should be obliged to suppose two reasons, with each 
his own universe and its space and time, and 
neither reason to have any communion with the 
reason, the universe, and the space and time of the 
other. This last supposition of two independent ab- 
solute Reasons, and their Universes, is a self-absurdity, 
and thus an inconsistency with the very being of 
reason, and making absolute unreason, and cannot 
therefore be supposed. 

That there should be one common space and com- 
mon time, it is now seen that there must be one 
substantial, permanent, universal Nature, giving its 






FORCE DETERMINES PHENOMENA. 147 

phenomenal extensions and successions to sensible 
experience, and standing itself in its own place and 
period, which is veritably Absolute Space and Abso- 
lute Time, and that no mere thought-world can have 
such common space and time. 



CHAPTER II 

FORCE. 



1. Force determines Phenomena. — A game of bil- 
liards may be so played before a mirror that each ap- 
pearance shall have its duplicate. All the phenomena 
are grouped together, and the events succeed each 
other in the mirror as in the open vision. The exten- 
sions and successions are alike, and the spaces and 
times are alike ; the one is but the repetition of the 
other. We might conceive the mirror and the reality 
to be so arranged, that by the sight alone we could 
not say which was the direct and which the reflected 
appearance. In such a condition we could not explain 
any of the phenomenal connections. We could not 
say what gave the sticks their length, the balls their 
volume, nor, on the contact of sticks and balls, what 
gave the balls their motion. We might see that the 
balls always went when hit, and always moved in the 
direction they were struck, and might talk of the 



148 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



necessity of such connections, and call the invariable 
uniformity of appearance laws of Nature ; but it 
would be mere uniformity with no known necessity, 
and simple invariableness with no known law for it. 

Should we, by observing the frame of the mirror 
or other circumstance, come to know which was 
the direct and which the reflected appearance, and 
should observe the invariable uniformity of extension 
and succession in the two appearances, we might 
probably go over here with the same talk of neces- 
sity and law in reference to the connections of direct 
and reflected appearance, as in reference to the con- 
nections of the phenomena among themselves ; but 
these necessities and laws of reflection would be 
mere uniformity of fact, with no known determina- 
tion why they were so. 

We might go further with the sense, and apply 
the auditory organs — hearing the balls hit ; and might 
also apply the sense of touch in muscular pressure — 
feeling the balls to be hard, and the mu soles to be 
under tension when the hand pushed the stick against 
the balls ; and we should here augment the number 
of invariable uniformities. We should have muscular 
tension when the stick went towards the ball, and 
sound and motion when the stick and balls met ; and 
again we might talk of necessity and law, but we 
should still have only uniform fact, and no known 
necessity and law for it. That there is sound when 
the balls hit, and that the balls are hard, no more de- 
termines any necessity for motion when they hit 



FORCE DETERMINES PHENOMENA. 149 

than when the motion followed the contact in the 
mirror. The mere animal sense cannot learn statics 
and dynamics, and determine phenomenal connec- 
tions, any more through all the organs than through 
any one. Nor do the phenomenal contraction of 
the muscles and the feeling of the tension when the 
hand moves, and pushes the stick, and impels the 
ball, give any more knowledge of necessity and 
law by the sense and logical faculty, than the ap- 
pearances in a looking-glass. 

But the reason sees from all these, and, indeed, in 
a small part of the phenomena, that a present Force 
is conditional for these uniformities, and determines 
all these invariable connections. A force stands 
permanent in a place, and determines all the phe- 
nomenal extensions ; and this force changes its place, 
and determines all the phenomenal movements; or it 
may be that force modifies force in its place, and thus 
determines all phenomenal successions. The mean- 
ing seen, the lesson read by the insight of reason in 
these phenomena, is, that a force is present determining 
every phenomenon in extension and succession, and 
necessitating and giving law to every connection. To 
the reason, the force is as validly known as the phe- 
nomenon is to the sense, and all the particular phenom- 
ena, whether of reflection, or open vision ; of exten- 
sion in place, or 'of motion from place, or alteration of 
appearances, — all are closed together and completely 
comprehended in the insight of the single force that 
has accomplished the whole result. The force is 



150 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

known after the phenomena, but known to have 
been before the phenomena. 

This force, which exists before and determines all 
phenomenal extensions and successions, cannot itself 
be phenomenal ; the force affects the sense, and the 
peculiar mode in which the affection stands in the 
sense-consciousness is the appearance, or phenome- 
non ; and so as the force qualifies the sense, we have 
quality in sense and substantial force in reason. The 
reason sees in the affection that the force is condition- 
al for it, and is the essential thing that the quality 
means. Phenomena do not perpetuate their exten- 
sions and successions, nor can they determine their 
own interconnections ; the substantial force alone 
can perpetuate and connect sense-appearances. Sci- 
ence is getting fast hold of the deep significance that 
matter can stand alone in extension, and work out 
itself its successions ; but just so far as science rec- 
ognizes such truth, ic is obliged to modify all former 
notions of dead matter, — an inert matter moved by 
force, — and say out unequivocally, Matter is Force. 
But so saying, science is transcending experience, and 
entering the sphere where the insight of reason can 
alone guide the footsteps. If we use force at all, we 
must employ the function of reason, and not sense, 
nor logical conclusions from sense ; and when we so 
come to know that force is, and what it is, we may 
also know what creation is, and the essential connec- 
tions of the created universe. 






ELEMENTS OF FORCE. 151 

2. The Elements of Force. — So far as the sense- 
apprehension alone is in exercise, phenomena are all 
the objects known ; and, to sense, phenomena are all 
there is of matter. As they alter or move, it is the 
common assumption that some force has somehow been 
applied, and thus it is supposed that matter is one 
thing, and that force is distinct from it, and moves or 
modifies it. These two suppositions cannot go to- 
gether. If sense give all the elements of knowledge 
we have, we shall have nothing to do with forces; and 
if force be recognized as a cognition of reason, we 
shall need and shall know no other matter; and the 
force itself will be all that matter is, and the matter 
itself will do all that force does. The phenomena 
will, it is true, be altered by the force, but this is be- 
cause the phenomena come of the force through the 
medium of the sense, and are the mode in which the 
force affects the sense and determines the sense- 
experience. All matter and all phenomena may thus 
be here disregarded, and only the being of Force 
considered, since the force is the matter, and the 
phenomena give only the way the sense is affected 
by the force. 

Should we conceive of some agency operating in an 
utter void, as perhaps gravity or magnetism, and so 
acting simply and singly, with or against nothing, we 
could not contemplate in such activity that it was an 
existing force. It must act from or against another, 
or we cannot recognize that it has a standing in place, 
or a passing in period, and it cannot manifest itself in 



152 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



any form of existence. As simple activity, the reason 
may recognize it, but not sense, and as such reason- 
object we may name it impulse. The reason can fur- 
ther discriminate such impulse as having in it an 
efficiency that will manifest itself on reaction with 
another, and know this as energy in the impulse, dis- 
tinct from the efficiency or energy in the source send- 
ing out the impulse. That source might energize in 
remembering, or imagining, or even thinking, and the 
activit}' would carry along no energy, manifesting it- 
self in reaction with another remembering, or imagin- 
ing, or thinking ; but if the source energize in execu- 
tive willing, that activity as executive Will carries 
over from the source an efficiency in itself, and which 
abides with it, and must manifest itself in reaction 
when meeting in antagonism another executive activ- 
ity. The energy in the impulse is not itself force, 
for as yet it can have no overt manifestation ; but 
meeting and counterworking with another such agen- 
cy, the two become a third new thing as Force. This 
may be in any way of meeting another, as of impulse 
meeting impulse, or meeting an already existing force, 
and such meeting and counterworking of the impulse 
changes it from simple energetic impulse to an exist- 
ing efficient force. 

The limit in which the antagonism occurs will be- 
come a taken and fixed position, and will give occa- 
sion for organic impression, and may thus induce phe- 
nomenal extensions and successions as in place and 
period; and in its own fixed contemplation by tho 



ELEMENTS OF FORCE. 153 

reason, it gives occasion for estimating direction aud 
distance by all intelligences ; and also for estimating 
motion and succession by all intelligences ; and thus 
for knowing one common space and one common time. 
Again, an expulse may be sent out, and as a balance 
to its expulsion another must be sent out in the oppo- 
site direction, and two such divellent activities from a 
common source will be persistent in position, and ne- 
cessary each to the other's expulsion as an equilibrat- 
ed agency ; and such diremptive action from a given 
limit will be also force. Heat or light that should 
simply go off in a single activity could not be con- 
ceived as in position, or determined as having succes- 
sion ; for there would be no fixed point for determin- 
ing anything, and we could not say whether the single 
activity were impulse or expulse. But when it is 
contemplated that the two activities are disrupted in 
their source as if each reciprocally energized to expel 
the other, and these together keep their source in 
equal and persistent activity, they will constitute a 
recognized force, and give occasion from their lumi- 
nous or thermal limit to determine extension and 
motion, and thus fix their place and period. The light 
or heat centres in diremption would have a space and 
time in common for all, as truly as the magnetic or 
gravitating centres in their antagonism. Such ex- 
pulses may be contemplated as going out every way 
from a common limit, or the impulses coming in every 
Avay to a common limit, and both are forces giving a 
space and a time, respectively, in common for all. 



154 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



Another activity may be contemplated as turning 
these antagonisms or diremptions upon their central 
limits, by the direction given to the new impulses or 
expulses that constitute a new force in the limit 
and position of the old ; and such activity meeting 
and turning the old forces will be itself also a true 
force. 

We have thus three forms of forces, one with im- 
pulses counterworking in the limit, and which may 
be known as Antagonist Force ; one with expulses 
divellent from the limit, and which may be known as 
Diremptive Force ; and one in originating the new in 
such a manner as to turn the old on the limit, and 
which may be called Revolving Force. In the order 
of contemplation, the impulses are sent together and 
make the antagonism ; the expulses are sent apart 
and make the diremption ; and the new force crowd- 
ing into the place of the old makes the revolution. 
But impulse and expulse and newly generating force 
may all counterwork with each other respectively, 
and such mutual counterworking will in all cases be 
Antagonism. And the counterworking is the force ; 
and out of the force is simple impulse, or expulse 
that has energy which can be measured only by the 
force in its place of counterworking. 

Force is thus essentially the combination of two 
activities implicated in action and reaction, whether 
in their place of antagonism or diremption, and such 
implication of the duplex activities is not a mere limit, 
as mathematical plane, between them, but a limited, 



ELEMENTS OP FORCE. 155 

as a bodily plate, which has both upper and lower 
side ; the action and reaction truly filling a place, and 
standing bodily in its own place, excluding other 
bodies. It is more than simple being. The impulses 
and expulses have being, yet they can have no ap- 
pearance in experience ; but where they act and 
react, there is interpenetration ; mutual implication ; 
and so a standing in place and perduring in period, 
and thus the being becomes existence. While the 
impulses and expulses out of the place of their im- 
plication are spiritual activities, their combination is 
force, in which the two, as antagonizing or divellent, 
become one, and such force is overtly substantial 
and causal. It has been made, and so is fact; it has 
a standing in re, and so is a reality. Expulses and 
impulses may so interwork to make all distinguish- 
able forces, and then forces may interwork in endless 
compositions, resolutions, conversions, and correla- 
tions, while the universal energies shall have persis- 
tent conservation. We contemplate them as in three 
Divisions, viz., Antagonist, Direraptive, and Revolv- 
ing Forces. 



156 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



FIRST DIVISION. 



ANTAGONIST FORCE. 



1. Creation op Force. — Creation is used here, 
not as any modification of an old, but wholly an 
origination of a new thing. Something is made to 
stand where there was nothing, and thereby giving 
original existence. It does not involve any viola- 
tion of the necessary truth, " out of nothing, nothing 
comes ; " for a Creator is, and from the Creator crea- 
tion comes. The attempt is, from the knowledge of 
force, to attain a rational determination of its Origin. 

Force may be perpetually converting itself into 
other forms, while maintaining perfect self-conserva- 
tion and exact equivalence; but such rising up of 
new forms is only a change in old forces, and what 
we now contemplate is, the first putting of force 
where no force was. From previous speculation, 
we know a Creator spiritual and personal, incogniza- 
ble by sense, but who is now to manifest his " power 
and Godhead " in the creation of Force, and arrange- 
ment of it in a material Universe. 

The interaction of forces modifies their state and 
place; but we may here pass by changes of inner 
state, and contemplate motion as change of outer 



CREATION OF FORCE. 157 

place, and from this shall better be in position to 
determine the creation of force. Matter at rest does 
not originate motion, but must be moved ; and such 
motion in experience indicates previous force. How 
shall we attain the knowledge of a first Mover? 

I draw a weight to me, or cast a stone from me ; 
and when I consider the action, I note that my feet 
in contact with the earth has given occasion for an 
antagonism by which equal momenta in opposite 
directions have been imparted to the earth, and to 
the weight or stone; and this in each case alike, 
except as in the pulling, the foot-fulcrum has been 
on one side of me, and in the pushing, it has been 
on the other side. The great inequality of mass 
gives only the motion of the weight, drawn or thrown, 
to be noticed, and I can follow the moving succes- 
sively through the working levers of my limbs, the 
contracting muscles of my body, the irritation of the 
nerves, the excitement in the ganglionic centres, the 
affection in the cerebral sensorium, and if we include 
the animal heat expended, we shall then get through 
the manifest material movement, and come at length in 
the reason to the insight of a sentient agency, which 
is out of all empirical observation. Can this insight 
go further than the sentient impulse? 

A man and a monkey may alike throw the stone, 
and we trace the successive movings of matter in 
the same way, in both the man and the brute, out 
to a sentient impulse that stands beyond sense- 
observation. And in this the man and monkey may 



158 KNOWLEDGE QF CREATION. 

still be alike. The sentient impulse to gratify some 
appetite may be the moving spring in both, and as 
this is in constitutional nature, and must prompt ac- 
cording to its degree of intensity, what is already in 
nature moves the stone in the case of each. But the 
man may do the deed from a motive the animal can- 
not have in consciousness. He may know the claim 
of reason in either taste, or science, or duty ; and in 
the interest of beauty, truth, or right, may begin 
and perpetuate a movement on nature, which starts 
from a' source beyond nature, and may resist and 
control nature. This reason-claim can overrule appe- 
tite, and overcome inertia, and gravity, and friction, 
and set static forces in motion. It has not made new 
matter, but it has begun changes in nature which can 
never be eliminated. 

The rational spirit of Man may thus begin an ac- 
tivity from itself, which shall originate motion in 
matter, and so use and control material and sentient 
nature as to manifest that he has, what the Animal 
has not, a supernatural principle of life and action. 
He can control himself as artist, philosopher, or moral 
agent; and both think and act freely against nature. 
He so far creates as to originate his own ideals of 
beauty, truth, and goodness, and express them as his 
own in the world of matter as really as does the 
divine Creator. And yet, though man may use na- 
ture, and put his own ideals upon matter, yet can 
he not create matter. He moves matter only by 
using matter already created. His spirit is incar- 



CREATION OF FORCE. 159 

nated in matter, and can put out no overt energies 
which must not meet matter, and can neither go 
through nor around matter. His will acts on nature 
only through the medium of his own materiality, 
and though he literally moves the world with every 
tread, yet can he not step out in the void, and put 
his will into his own ideal, and make a new reality 
and add it to old matter. His permanent changes in 
matter make no additions to matter. 

And were we to suppose a finite spirit free from 
all corporeity, if that be possible, the creation of its 
ideals and the will it should put within them would 
make them impenetrable to another will only to the 
extent of its own energy and within its own sphere 
of activity, and could only stiffen ideas into consis- 
tency within his own subjective sphere of thinking 
and willing. But with the pure Absolute Spirit, we 
have no such hinderances to the supposition of his 
creating. In him is the Universal source of all idea 
and will ; and the putting an overt energy of his 
omnipotence into his idea makes it impervious to 
any other will than his own. It must truly be sub- 
jective to himself, and within his own degree and 
sphere of thinking and willing; but so also will all 
other creatures be. All must live, and move, and 
have their being in Him ; and yet intelligibly they 
must stand only in Him, but out of each other; all 
immediately within the God-consciousness, but only 
mediate to any other consciousness. 

The Absolute Spirit was, while yet the material 



160 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

worlds were not. All elemental Ideas, and all possi- 
ble combinations of them, are his ; and that interest 
which comes from seeing that it is the most satis- 
factory in the end of reason that the ideal be ex- 
pressed in overt reality is also his. But neither 
the elemental nor the combined Universal Idea 
is force. It stands only in thought, and has not 
been fixed in steadfast thing. And the most simple 
element for thing in any form is, as has already been 
noticed, the meeting and antagonizing of two single 
impulses in a common limit. We, now, suppose the 
Creator to fill the simplest idea of force with such 
antagonizing impulses ; and the Idea is no longer 
mere thought; an energetic will has fixed the 
thought in its own counterworking steadfast in the 
void, and the place, empty of all but thought, is 
now filled by a force which will not let anything 
but itself stand in it, without first moving itself 
from it. It is the first element of matter, or rather 
matter itself in its primal essence. The equal an- 
tagonism holds the force at rest in fixed position, 
or an excess of energy in one impulse over the 
other necessitates perpetual passing out of place, 
which is motion. Here is sufficient occasion for 
common extension, and thus a Common Space, and 
common succession, and thus a Common Time. And 
space may to any extent be so filled and periods 
so pass, and we shall have therein a World making 
its own history. 

The antagonizing impulse is to be conceived as 



FORCE AFFECTS SENSE-ORGANS. 161 

God's product, just as the stone-throwing impulse 
was the man's product. The latter moved matter in 
meeting it, the former made matter in meeting an- 
other impulse. And just as the stone-throwing im- 
pulse, though the product of the man's spirit, is not 
the spirit, so the force, though the product of God, 
is still not God. The limit between the material and 
spiritual, the natural and supernatural, is in the im- 
pulse. Where that meets in the limit and antago- 
nizes, matter and nature begin ; above that is the 
region of the spiritual and supernatural, spaceless 
and timeless except in thought-statement and thought- 
movement only. The completed creation will demand 
the cognition of the three distinct conscious agencies 
before considered, viz., the free idealizing, and the 
realizing, and the formalizing agency ; but for some 
time to come, we shall need but the conception of 
simple impulses counter-working in their limits of 
meeting, and thus becoming Force, in order to an in- 
sight of many Principles and Laws which must deter- 
mine largely human experience in connection with 
the material universe. 

2. IT IS COMPETENT FOR FORCE TO AFFECT ANY 

Sense-organs. — All sense-organs have their pecu- 
liar appropriate arrangements, and their living nerves 
for conveying the irritation from any impression to 
the central sensorium. The organ being properly 
constituted, it is open to the application of force in 
some form, either direct from the body of the space- 
11 



162 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

filling force, or through some medium between the 
body and the organ. The combined forces that fill 
their place, and constitute body, cannot put them- 
selves within the organ, and through that into the 
consciousness, and therefore forces themselves can- 
not be made to appear, in any sense ; but they may 
make their impression upon any organ superficially, 
and such impression stimulates the nerve, the affec- 
tion in which we term sensation, and which is intel- 
lectually brought into full perception. The organ is 
the medium between the force and the intellect, and 
the affection in the organ by the force is the imme- 
diate object of apprehension and intellectual con- 
struction ; so that the constitutional essence of mat- 
ter is perceived by no sense, and only the mode in 
which the organ has been affected by the matter. 
Hence it is that we rightly term all sense-appearance 
phenomenon, while the force, as matter in itself, and 
which cannot appear, is termed noumenon. The 
noumenon is the object of the reason-knowing, while 
the phenomenon is the object of the sense-knowing. 
The usual distinction, in less technical form, is " the 
thing in itself" and its "qualities." The animal 
sense knows only qualities, and without the compre- 
hending insight of reason, it could not be known 
that there is any object beyond the quality. There 
are those who say that the sense is so constituted 
that we know the thing in itself by it, and this, 
though lacking in essential discrimination, is true 
on the whole. The sense is so constituted that in 






FORCE AFFECTS SENSE-ORGANS. 163 

ft the reason knows the thing in itself, but the ani- 
mal sense knows only the appearing quality. The 
phraseology gives the truth as a whole, but it wrong- 
fully ignores the agency of reason, and ascribes to 
the agency of sense more than any sense can accom- 
plish. No consciousness ever embraced the essence 
of matter as "thing in itself," and the reason does con- 
template what is in consciousness, so as to know that 
this truly means essential matter beyond appearance. 
This discrimination of cognitive Faculty makes 
consistent the use of the terms Substance and Acci- 
dence, Cause and Effect, Action and Reaction. The 
reason knows the persistent force giving determina- 
tion to the appearances in simple apprehension, and 
comprehends them in one by it; the comprehensive 
force is Substance, and the sense-appearances are 
Accidence. The reason also knows that a substan- 
tial force becomes changed by interaction with an- 
other, and that variations of appearance in the appre- 
hension are induced by it, and comprehends the 
varying accidence in the changed, substance ; the 
interacting substances make the determining Cause, 
and the varying events are its Effect. And so again, 
the reason knows that the interacting substances 
modify reciprocally, and that as one changes the 
other, this one is also changed by the other, and 
thus the varying accidence in each is shut in con- 
current communion ; and such comprehension of 
interacting forces and mutually changed appearances 
is Reciprocity. The reason sees, in the knowing 



164 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



processes of the above three cases, a perfect accord- 
ance with the action of the knowing forces, and that 
the knowing subjectively and the being objectively 
exactly correspond. 

And thus it is plain that the existence of such 
space-filling forces gives occasion for impressing any 
kind of sense-organs, and awaking sensations within 
them in endless diversity, and thereby multiplying 
appearances in experience as various as the organs 
affected and the forces impressing them, and accord- 
ing to the direction, rapidity, and intensity of the 
stroke. As is the peculiar sensation, such must be the 
perception ; and as the organs in different persons are 
alike or similar, such must be the sameness or similari- 
ty in their perceptions; and if the organs of some are 
morbidly or congenitally varied from the normal stand- 
ard, such must be the defect or derangement of their 
perception. The perfect organ being given, the exist- 
ing Force has only appropriately to strike it, and the 
content is given that the sense knows according to 
its phenomenal quality, and in the quality the reason 
knows the substantial matter in its essential nature. 
Thus all appearances in all experiences come from 
the same universal forces, and are connected in one 
Space and Time. 



3. Force determines Motion. — The elements of 
force make it an object for the contemplation of the 
reason of much the same clearness as the intuition 
of a pure mathematical diagram. We may construct 



FORCE DETERMINES MOTION. 165 

.the direction of the energizing impulses, and fix their 
limit of counterworking, and the comprehension of 
the separate energies in the antagonism makes it 
easy for the reason to determine what must be the 
necessary and universal result. The force has an 
intelligible nature, and must develop its action ac- 
cording to its constitutional being, and resting and 
moving will be according to laws which abide in the 
forces themselves. We do not seek now to follow 
any phenomenal changes through their processes, 
since they are but the effects of force, and could 
give only the appearance after the fact ; but we con- 
template the force itself in its essential nature, and 
can foretell w r hat must be, step after step, from the 
determination of principles as d priori laws. 

When the impulses just balance their energies in 
the antagonism, by resisting in action and reaction 
equally, they must therein rest constant in one posi- 
tion. The literal import of rest is balanced resist- 
ance. Where so purposed and constituted by the 
Maker, the force keeps one place permanently, and 
such is properly a static Force ; a standing steadfast 
in its place. When unequal energies counterwork, 
their mutual resistance is force to the extent of 
their equal energizing; but such force cannot rest 
in one place, since its constituent impulses do not 
stand equally in energy one against the other. The 
impulse that has an excess of energy must prevail- 
ingly impel from its side, and drive the static force 
from its place in the direction of its energizing. 



166 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

The force in this way must successively pass from 
position to position, and such passing through con- 
tiguous points is generated Motion. What to the 
sense is an absurd because self-contradictory de- 
mand, that there should be a first-mover, is here 
made self-consistent and wholly intelligible. In mat- 
ter as given to the logical understanding there can 
be thought no first-mover ; for the mover must al- 
ready be in motion, in order that it may move another. 
The reason-object as Absolute Spirit can have no 
loco-motion, inasmuch as he can be never known as 
occupying place. But the Absolute Spirit can origi- 
nate force with unequal impulses, and this must im- 
mediately generate motion. The force moves, but 
the Mover does not move, and-{n this force motion 
begins. 

An addition of energy on one side must drive 
from, and a subtraction of energy on one side drives 
from the opposite side, or may be said to draw to, and 
loco-motion is ever from the push or pull of unequally 
energetic impulses. A Force thus unbalanced, mov- 
ing from place to place or pushing in its own place, 
is a dynamic Force, and may overcome the rest of a 
static force. A static stands, a dynamic drives or 
draws. Designed movement may so be generated 
when before there was no motion. In the light of 
such necessary truths all the Laws of Motion may 
readily be determined. We know them not as 
gained in experience, but as , they must be before 
and in all experience. 






FIRST LAW OP MOTION. 167 

i. Motion from simple excess of energy must be in- 
cessant, uniform, and rectilineal. If one impulse be of 
greater energy than the other, it must still be counter- 
acted by the weaker to the amount of energy which 
the weaker has, but the excess of the stronger has 
nothing to balance it, and it must immediately impel 
the force as balanced into motion, and as nothing in- 
terferes to check the motion, it must be incessant. 
The excess of energy gives its amount of impetus at 
once, and thence onward follows up as the force that 
is balanced proceeds, and never comes to any repeti- 
tion of impetus. The motion must, thus, be not only 
incessant, but also uniform. 

The excess of energy gave its impetus at the start 
in its own direction of working, and which necessi- 
tated the movement of that balanced force to begin in 
that direction. As thenceforth there can be no repe- 
tition of impetus in any direction, so the motion must 
be incessant and uniform not only, but also must be 
rectilineal. 

The whole perpetuated motion is determined in the 
instant impetus, and henceforth, without other agen- 
cy, nothing of the motion varies. All the above must 
be as true, in the case of all aggregate forces in their 
one body, as with the forces in one point, for each 
point will have the same determinate law, and the 
whole must move together as the one, incessantly, uni- 
formly, and rectilineally. 

Again, the same determinate law must prevail in all 
transmissions of motion by the impetus of different 



168 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

bodies. If any aggregate of forces occupy places in 
dividually in a body at rest, and other forces moving 
in body come in contact in the direction of their bal- 
anced antagonism, the moving forces bring just their 
excess of energies, in their direction of motion, to the 
forces at rest which work in the same direction, and 
thus give to them their instant measure of impetus 
in the same direction of working, and therefore the 
forces at rest must take on an incessant motion in the 
same right-lined direction, and in uuifoim progression 
from that point of contact. And if forces moving in 
a body come in contact with those moving in another 
body by reason of greater velocity, the excess of en- 
ergy on the one side of the antagonism in the swifter 
body will add a greater degree to the excess in the 
slower body, and thus instantly quicken its motion, 
but thenceforth that quickened motion must be inces- 
sant, uniform, and right-lined. And so must it be in 
all cases of simple excess of energies. 

ii. That motion which any superinduced force would 
give must be compounded with the motion which the ori- 
ginal force already has. Not here, as in the first law, 
is there perpetually a uniformity of the excess of 
energy and of the direction, but there is a combina- 
tion of impulses or of forces, and also the introduction 
of that which in one case modifies the rate, and in 
another case the direction, of the motion. Another 
degree of excess in the antagonism is given, and thus 
the uniformity of the velocity must be lost, or there 
is an impulse transverse to the old antagonism given, 



SECOND LAW OF MOTION. 169 

and thus the rectilineal movement before the greater 
energy is gone. The degrees and the directions of 
the energies must be compounded. 

We may here take any physical force moving under 
the determinations of the first law above given, and 
now superinduce a new force acting upon it. In one 
case, it may be precisely in the line of the old antago- 
nisms, but in contrary directions, and of different de- 
grees of energy. If in the direction of the weaker 
energy of the moving forces, and }'et not of sufficient 
energy to balance the excess of the stronger, it must 
then retard the movement. If sufficient in energy to 
just equal and balance the excess, it must wholly sus- 
pend all motion. If sufficient to give to the weaker 
side of the antagonism a stronger impulse, then the 
excess of energy changes sides, and the old motion is 
not only suspended, but turned back, and must be ret- 
rograde movement. If the superinduction be on the 
side of the more energetic impulse, there must be ac- 
celerated motion. If the retardation or acceleration 
be by a force that gives its impetus singly and at 
once, then will the measure of the motion be deter- 
mined in the instant impetus, and thenceforward the 
motion must be uniform. But if the retardation or 
acceleration be from a force which perpetually renews 
its impetus, then must the motion be perpetually re- 
tarded or accelerated. In all of these cases it is 
manifest that the old motion is to be compounded with 
the new motion given, inasmuch as these compound 
motions are the resultants, necessarily, of the combin- 



170 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

ing of the old and new forces, and thereby modifying 
the- excess of energy which generates the motion, 
though in the above cases there can be no change in 
direction except as it may be directly retrograde, but 
must always be in the same line. 

In another case of compounding, the superinduced 
force may be applied transversely to the old antago- 
nism. In such case there can be no balancing of the 
antagonisms, nor a direct reversing of the excess of 
energy, nor merely an increasing the weaker or the 
stronger impulse, and therefore the composition of the 
forces and their resulting movements can have noth- 
ing to do with the uniformity of movement, but must 
necessarily modify its direction, inasmuch as the new 
transverse force will not allow the old excess of ener- 
gy to go any way up or down the old line of working. 
This old excess of energy will continue in its old di- 
rection, and the superinduced force will come and 
continue in some transverse direction, and the first 
law of motion cannot have an unhindered application. 
The movement cannot be in the line of the old more 
energetic antagonism, for the superinduced force now 
thwarts this by intersecting its line ; and no more can 
the movement be in the line of the new force, because 
the old excess of energy continues working in its 
former direction, and must thwart the superinduced 
force. 

This new force may come in any direction on either 
side of the line of the old antagonisms, but in any 
way it must be in the same point with the old impulses 



SECOND LAW OF MOTION. 171 

at their counterworking. That superinduced force is, 
then, as a third impulse meeting the antagonist im- 
pulses in their point of contact, and interfering in the 
results of their working, and the motion induced must 
be determined by the compounding of those impulses. 
The excess of the antagonist energy, and so the mo- 
tion, was before on one side and in one direction of 
the antagonism, and the new is tending in its own di- 
rection, and they can now neutralize and balance 
themselves in but one common point between them. 
That common point will give its excess of energy as 
a unit, and move the force accordingly, and the per- 
petuation of the impulses must perpetuate successive- 
ly the points in which they balance each other, and 
•the motion must be through these points successive- 
ly, from one to another, and thus the line of motion 
must be through the points in which the compound 
energies shall balance each other. 

The rate of motion and its direction, which the ex- 
cess of energy on one side of the antagonism has in- 
duced, being given, and then the rate of motion and 
its direction, which must be induced in the excess 
of energy on one side of the force which is to be sup- 
plied, being also known, we must compound the two 
according to their respective velocities and direction, 
and this will give the velocity and direction of the 
newly acquired motion. This compounding of the 
excess of the energies must put the resulting line 
somewhere between the lines of direction which they 
separately make. The forces may be either repellent 



172 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

or tractile, and their resultant, both in degree and 
direction, will be the diagonal of the parallelogram 
which is formed by drawing a straight line in the 
direction of each of the forces, so that the two 
straight lines shall be proportional to the degrees 
of the forces ; and then, from the end of each line, 
there must be drawn a line parallel to the other, 
thereby completing the parallelogram. The common 
resultant of any number of forces may so be deter- 
mined, by taking them two by two to the last. The 
excesses of energy being equal, the resultant bisects 
the angle ; if unequal, the resultant must be on the 
side towards the line of the greater, making the sines 
of the angles with the component forces to be in- 
versely as the forces themselves. 

If the excesses be equal and opposite, and there 
be no generation or accumulation of force at the 
point of antagonism, they must equilibrate perpetual- 
ly, and no motion can occur. But if there be a gen- 
erating of new forces perpetually at this point of 
antagonism, there will then be a peculiar composi- 
tion which must give its peculiar but still very 
determinate resultant. The physical fact of the 
equilibrating impulses, as a static, has the further 
metaphysical fact of the originating new forces con- 
tinually, as dynamic growth, in the same place as 
the existing force. The direction of the continually 
generating forces must be determined by the an- 
tagonism of the impulses working in that place. The 
spiritual source is as a constant energizing in the 



SECOND LAW OF MOTION". 173 

limiting point of the already antagonizing impulses, 
and sends out a perpetual growth of antagonizing 
impulses in that limiting point; and while resisted 
by the old impulses, and yet issued out in growth 
against them, these impulses of the new must in 
this condition, at first, be determined to an antago- 
nism transversely with the old, and perpendicular to 
them in their common point of working. The con- 
stant accumulations of the new impulses must, at 
length, bring their antagonisms into all directions, 
and ensphere them about this point. The Spiritual 
source is Himself independent of place, and cannot 
be determined as in any place, but He creates new 
forces in the same place as is the old force, and the 
compounding of old and new in their working must 
equilibrate in the beginning in perpendicular antag- 
onism, and ultimately in ensphered antagonism. 

The method, as above given, of compounding the 
motions of two forces, which motions are generated' 
by their respective excess of energies on one side 
of their antagonisms, is applicable to any number 
of superinduced forces, and any variety in their ex- 
cess of energies. In each case the old motion must 
be given, and the resulting motion from the com- 
position of the first superinduced force must be 
found, and this will then become the given motion. 
This, then, must be compounded with the motion 
which the second superinduced force would secure 
as its resultant, and this, then, is a given motion to 
be compounded with a third superinduction, and thus 






174 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

onward to any number. The resulting motion will 
ever be the compound of that which either force 
applied in succession would give together with that 
which had before been given in the original, or any 
aggregate of superinduced forces. The first Law 
determines the direction of motion, from the per- 
petuity and constant direction of the excess of 
energy which generates it. The second Law de- 
termines the direction of motion, from the com- 
pounding of the aggregate excess of energies in 
all the forces which conspire to generate it. 

iii. The rate of motion must be directly as the dy- 
namic force moving, and inversely as the static force 
moved. The static force is the intensity of energy 
with which the antagonism holds itself in position, and 
the dynamic force is the excess of energy in one side 
of the antagonism together with the intensity of the 
counteraction. In the static both impulses equally 
energize and resist each other, and the degree of 
the energies which rest against each other is the 
measure of the force. In the dynamic both impulses 
energize and resist, and thus constitute a force ; but 
one impulse is of superior energy, and thus perpetual- 
ly displaces this force, and the excess of the energy, 
together with the intensity of the counteraction, meas- 
ures the dynamic force. The impulses may be of 
greater intensity in each point of a small body, so 
as to equal a less intensity in the many points of a 
large body ; and thus it must follow that it is not the 
volume only, but the volume and the intensity, and 



THIRD LAW OF MOTION. 175 

which will bo the mass, that measures the resistance 
to motion ; and that it is not the mass alone, but the 
mass and the excess of energy that measure the 
capability to overcome rest and induce motion. 

When, then, one force acts upon another, the two 
are combined into one which is exactly equivalent 
to their sum. The static element of this new force 
in combination must be the sum of the static elements 
of the two compound forces ; and the excess of im- 
pulse of the new force is found from the considera- 
tion, that when combined with the new static ele- 
ment, the resultant must be equal to the sum of the 
two component dynamic forces. This determines the 
excess, and consequently the rate of motion which 
measures the excess (when the static force is given), 
to be directly as the dynamic and inversely as the 
static. Of course, when there is no excess of energy 
in one of the antagonist impulses, the force is a static ; 
but when this is moved by a dynamic, its rate of mo- 
tion is determined by the same law. The whole body 
moving may be called the dynamic force moving, and 
the whole body moved may be called the static force 
moved : and the Third Law of Motion is exactly ex- 
pressed by its being directly as the first and inverse- 
ly as the last. The complete conception of the static 
and dynamic force contains the complete determina- 
tion of the Third Law of Motion. 

In this Third Law of Motion is involved the con- 
ception of Momentum, Virtual Velocities, Inclined 
Plane, Acceleration of Falling Bodies, the determin- 



176 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

ing Principles of Fluid Pressure, and the Revolutions 
of Planetary Bodies. All the laws of Elementary 
Mechanics are eternal in the forces. 

4. The Atom is constituted from the created 
Forces. — Single forces may be created in any num- 
ber and put together in any variety of modes, but for 
the future uses of the atom, it is necessary that it be 
constituted from the forces in its own peculiar mode. 
The forces are the component elements of the Atoms, 
and the atoms are to be the component elements of 
the Universal worlds; and these atoms, therefore, 
must so be constituted as most completely to admit 
of expressing the divine Idea in the created uni- 
verse ; and its future uses in the construction of 
material bodies demand that we have full contempla- 
tion of its own inner construction in every particu- 
lar. We might conceive of two Atmospheric cur- 
rents meeting in antagonism, and so interpenetrating 
by mutual action and reaction each with each that 
they should form together a sphere of their own in 
the midst of the surrounding atmosphere; and even 
the conception might be extended to the resistances 
the currents should give to their interpenetrating 
reagencies on each side, turning them into circuits, 
and so making the sphere a whirlwind; and still 
more, that at the limit of antagonism, the turning 
reagencies might drive each other in opposite-handed 
circuits, and so make the spherical whirlwind to have 
its contrary direction in its two hemispheres. And 



THE ATOM CONSTITUTED OF FORCES. 177 

as the counterpart to such conception, we might well 
take the antagonizing impulses as they act and react 
in constituting a single force, and contemplate their 
interpenetrations to be so driven in and turned at 
their creation, that the)- together should constitute 
such a sphere with contrary circuits in its opposite 
hemispheres, and such would be precisely the atom 
which we shall subsequently see is needed in filling 
out the uses the atoms must subserve in material 
nature. 

But such conception cannot so definitely be made 
and put in pure intellectual contemplation, as to give 
the thorough insight needed for an adequate compre- 
hension of the atom in its coming subserviences in 
universal nature. We must necessarily take it, as 
if the Creator made it in successive instalments, and 
follow out the process as it were step by step. He 
may instantly create it in his own way; while to our 
comprehension, we must carry the individualizing 
bond through the process to the result, item by item, 
in our way of insight. This will make it necessary 
also to contemplate the Atom, as well as the Uni- 
verse, to have a threefold agency in its Creation ; 
viz., the voluntary idealizing, and realizing, and con- 
sistently fashioning the full product, and which can- 
not be contemplated as effected by a purely sim- 
ple act. 

We follow this method : The first created force is 
that of two impulses antagonizing in their common 
limit, and which is midway in the line of the two 
12 



178 



KNOWLEDGE OP CBEATION. 



impulses as they come together in contact from 
wholly indefinite distances. The next created force 
takes precisely the place of the first, both in its im- 
pulses and antagonizing limit, the first having been 
made to revolve on its mid-point to give place for 
the second. Thus the two forces of course intersect 
each other's impulses in their common place of an- 
tagonizing, and then both are made lurther to revolve 
together on their common mid-point to give the same 
place again for the third force to be created in it, and 
which third force also intersects the first two as they 
had intersected each other, and so onwards succes- 
sively. But the revolving, instead of being in a 
plane, is designedly from the start made to com- 
mence turning across the plane, so that in half a 
complete revolution the impulses of the first force 
coming up to, shall just pass by, the impulses of 
the last made force, and intersect them across the 
plane in the common centre. Then, continued revolv- 
ings and creations of new forces will give to the mov- 
ing impulses a spiral course, and from the contrary 
movements of the impulses that stand on opposite sides 
of the plane an opposite-handed helical movement also, 
till at length the impulses of the first made force will 
come to stand perpendicularly to the plane at its centre, 
and a sphere will have been completely constituted. 
No further forces can then enter, for the revolving 
is now blocked in the fulness of both hemispheres. 
The revolving force which began also stops in it, but 
to which we will turn our attention again in the 



THE ATOM HAS ITS NATURE. 179 

Third Division. The complete spherical Atom is 
thus constituted in its own peculiarity. 

5. Such constituted Atom has its own Nature. — 
Nature (a nascor) is a being born, and implies a 
perpetual passing out into new forms of existence. 
The new births are outcoming events from former 
growths, and the whole is but an evolution or devel- 
opment of what was originally given from the super- 
natural. The supernatural is spiritual, and has in 
it neither birth nor growth, but it originates from 
itself that which perpetually passes out in changing 
forms of being. The successive births were put 
originally in its constitution, and nothing comes from 
Nature which was not from the first put into nature. 
Hence we say of an) 7 overt existing thing that it 
works, acts out its changes, according to its nature. 
The connected necessities of cause and effect pass on* 
according to inner constitutional law, and from itself 
there is no alternative to the order of development. 

And here we note of the so constituted Atom, that 
it has already in it that which to the insight of 
reason determines its outcoming births and growths. 
Its nature is already put within it, and this has come 
•from the independent self-originating source above 
it. Nature finds its beginning in the atom, while 
all above the atom is supernatural spirit. 

The impulses are overt activities with given in- 
trinsic energy of will from the central spiritual 
source, and their antagonism in each pair involves 



180 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

action and reaction; and so their respective places 
of antagonism cannot be mere plane, but complex 
implication in a limited form of upper and lower 
sides, and outer and inner standing, necessitating 
the force in each case to be a bodily plate, filling 
and holding its definite place impenetrable by any 
other. But all these single plates of force are turned 
every way into a sphere as they constitute the Atom, 
and which in their composition must constitute the 
centre of the atom to be a core to its body of in- 
tenser energy, and the periphery of the atom to be a 
shell of diminished energy, in the one solid body, as 
the plates of force every way crowd each the other 
towards its own centre, which is their common centre, 
and where the intensest energy must be, and this cen- 
tre surrounded by its shell of weaker intensity. But 
outside the shell of substantial forces as atomic body 
single impulses come in on all sides from indefinite 
distances, as simple spiritual activities, impalpable to 
any sense, and capable of manifestation only in the 
movements of such forces, as from time to time may 
be thrust in from without among the lines of their 
agency. The Atom has its determined space, but its 
surrounding impulses give no determinate place, and 
only come in towards the place from distances wholly 
indefinite. 

Such concentrated, self-balanced, self-contained 
Atom is an independent miscrocosm ; a little world 
distinct in itself, substantially existing in its own 
static forces, and possessing its own intrinsic laws of 



FORCE DETERMINES INERTIA. 181 

causal efficiency, either as acting upon or reacting 
against other existing atoms. It fills its own place, 
and excludes all else from its place, and has ever in 
it its own unchanged identity, however removed from 
place to place or compounded with other atoms. Its 
intrinsic essence is mechanical force, and its action 
and reaction must ever be according to the necessities 
given in its constitution. Knowing essentially what 
it is, we can beforehand say of it what the old philoso- 
phy determined of Universal Nature, that to it non 
datur casus; non datur fatum; non datur saltus ; 
non datur vacuum. Its Maker is not excluded by it, 
nor precluded from changing or annihilating it, for he 
has access to its being at its central source; but its 
constitution, and law of being and working, nothing 
can modify except the spirit who originates it, and to 
that creating Spirit all atoms stand in utter depen- 
dency and complete subserviency. 

6. The Forces constituting the Atom determine 
what is its Inertia. — Inertia is literally negation of 
energy, and in this literal meaning it is quite commonly 
applied to matter ; and so matter is held to be passive, 
and itself dead to all energy. Yet matter does stand 
against and obstruct other matter, and does also inter- 
work and change other matter ; and this fact contra- 
dicts its assumption of passivity or dead inefficacy. It 
is then assumed, that while matter is itself passive and 
dead, there is, distinct from matter, force applied to or 
put in matter, and this force makes the matter obstruct 



182 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

or change other matter. But here comes in an absur- 
dity in the thought itself, for if matter be dead and 
inert it is inconceivable that force may be applied to 
it in any way so as to act on, or in, or by it. It can 
neither receive, nor retain, nor transmit force. The 
matter is taken to be wholly inert, and thus the force, 
and not the passive matter, must be the doer of all that 
is done, and the matter is as nothing aside from the 
applied force. 

Denying all energy to matter both contradicts 
experience, — for when matter is stricken it strikes 
back an equal blow, — and is absurd in thought, since 
it assumes that passivity may modify force. It can- 
not, then, be understood of inertia that the matter 
is destitute of energy. The inertia of matter is in- 
dicated in this, that the matter does not change its 
state of rest or of motion from itself. When at rest 
it so remains, and when in motion it so continues, 
till something from without is done to it ; and then 
the force, which overcomes rest or modifies motion, 
does either of these in inverse proportion to the mass 
of matter. Such facts seemed to evince that matter 
itself resisted change of state, and this dull stub- 
bornness was called inertia; and yet, as reluctance 
to change carried in it a latent power to hold itself 
in the same state, the very inertia had a hold-back 
energy which was called vis inertice. This apparently 
contradictory notion of an inertness, made and con- 
tinued so by its own energy, has kept the conceptions 
of rest and motion, and the multiplication of motion 



FORCE DETERMINES INERTIA. 183 

by mass in momentum, helplessly obscure and vague, 
always perplexing and often deluding and perverting. 

But when, in the insight of reason, we know the 
material atom to be constituted of antagonist forces, 
it is quite competent to see exactly what, in the 
resting or moving matter, inertia is; and, as pre- 
viously considered, that it is determinative of the 
Third Law of Motion. The material atom is a sphere 
of static forces, with their impulses persistently rest- 
ing against each other at the centre in equal ener- 
gies, and as the energies are in constant balance 
the matter is in constant rest. But an added excess 
of energy on any side deranges the balance, and a 
movement of the matter must ensue, and the same 
continued excess must necessitate the same per- 
sistent rate of motion. Yet as the applied excess 
of energy must reach and overbalance each rest- 
ing pair of energies in their intensities by divid- 
ing itself among them all, so the rate of motion 
must be in inverse ratio to the aggregate balanced 
energies in their intensities, and in this is the 
essence of inertia ; since proportioned to the bal- 
anced energies in their intensities is the hinder- 
ance to overcoming their rest ; and the same applies, 
on the other hand, in hindering motion when the 
matter has its energies unbalanced. 

So matter is never inert, for its essence is energy ; 
but tbe intensity of its energy makes and measures 
the hinderance to any modifications of its state of 
rest or motion, and that is known as its inertia ; 



184 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



since the excess of energy that moves from rest, 
or restores to rest, must come from without itself, 
and in that the matter is passive. 



7. The Atom determines Gravity. — It is the 
crowning glory of Inductive Science that it found the 
Law of Gravity. The name of Newton is immortal 
from this discovery. It can detract from the philos- 
ophy nothing, nor bring any disparagement, to the 
fame of the Philosopher, to see precisely the degree 
in which that discovery has increased our knowledge 
of nature, ^he hypothesis suggested to Newton's 
mind, by the falling apple or otherwise, was, that in 
all matter there is a tendency towards all other mat- 
ter ; and when this was extensively tried by experi- 
ence, especially in application to the complicated 
variations in the moon's motion, there was no hesita- 
tion in accepting the hypothesis as fact; and the ratio 
of this tendency was further found to be directly as 
the quantity of matter, and inversely as the square of 
the distance. Such general formula enables us to go 
out to the matter of all worlds, and determine its mo- 
tions and the places it must occupy in reference to 
other matter. In this broad fact we comprehend a 
large amount of other particular facts, and bind the 
many in unity within this one fact. We hence term 
it the law of gravity, not because we know any prin- 
ciple that so determines it, but because it is a broader 
fact than we have elsewhere found, and more single 
facts may be included by it. But this broader fact 



THE ATOM DETERMINES GRAVITY. 185 

lias no interpretation. For all we know, the propor- 
tions might have been otherwise, and we can find no 
reason that guided in the making. 

Sometimes the explication is sought by saying that 
matter seeks other matter in this ratio, as if the appre- 
hension of some sentient craving would relieve the 
mystery. This assumed social affinity between por- 
tions of matter is in the same way, as it was early 
said of the water rising in the pump when the air 
within was exhausted, only as this last was a repulsive 
sentiment, that nature abhorred a vacuum. But this 
higher fact of gravity, becoming known, included and 
expounded the rising of the water in the pump. The 
gravitating energy of the atmosphere upon the water 
about the pump forced this within the vacuum made 
in the pump, and we now smile derisively at the hor- 
ror of nature for a vacuum, which belonged to the 
unreasoning simplicity of an older philosophy. But 
when we talk of the attraction of matter for other 
matter, and that the atmosphere seeks the earth, we 
use the same kind of false analogy, and manifest as 
ignorant a simplicity as the men of an earlier philos- 
ophy. The atmosphere no more seeks the earth, and 
the earth no more attracts the atmosphere, than the 
pump sucked water because nature abhorred a vacuum. 
Seeking and abhorring, attracting and sucking, each 
involves the same gross solecism. The pump removed 
the air from its inside space, and the outside force 
pushed the water into it ; and two material forces, put 
within the energies of their component impulses, have 



186 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



their contiguous energies diminished, and their oppo- 
site energies augmented, and the two forces are thus 
pushed towards each other by their own energies. 
As the determination of the atmospheric pressure re- 
vealed the power of the pump, so will the determina- 
tion of atomic energies reveal the power of gravity. 

And yet there will remain a great difference in the 
two cases, with the advantage immensely on the side 
of the latter. The former found its explication in a 
higher fact, but that higher fact was left utterly unin- 
telligible, and the whole was as truly mysterious as 
ever. No fact can be explained by another fact that 
is itself inscrutable. But in this latter case of gravity, 
we do not leave it an unexpounded fact, nor merely 
run it back if we could under some bigger fact, but 
we determine this fact by the known eternal law of 
its constitution. We read in the fact how the Maker 
made it. If God's created matter is in essence sub- 
stantial force, then must every atom press towards 
every other atom, directly as the intensity of the 
force, and inversely as the square of its distance. 

A clear contemplation of the constituted atom un- 
answerably verifies the law in both sides of the ratio. 
The solid centre and shell of the atom is on all sides 
surrounded by the simple impulses which constitute 
the atom, in their antagonisms at the centre, and their 
interpenetration by their action and reaction. The 
solid ato"m has every way its surrounding impulses. 
These impulses work in upon the atom from wholly 
indefinite distances, and all make together a sphere of 



THE ATOM DETERMINES GRAVITY. 187 

utterly an indefinite magnitude. The impulses out 
from the atom have nothing that can affect the sense 
and give appearance, except as something may be in- 
terposed which shall constitute an antagonism at the 
point of interposition. The impulses all work to the 
atom, aud can never set back from the atom. The in- 
tensity of energy in the impulses determines the den- 
sity of the atom, and its volume, and these make up 
its mass or quantity of matter. Inasmuch as all the 
impulses are balanced in the atom, so the energy of 
impulse in any line upon the atom is equal to that in 
every other line ; and as the aggregate of all intensity 
is the quantity of matter, so the energy towards the 
atom in any one line, and also the aggregation of en- 
ergy in all lines, is in each case as the quantity of 
matter. But this impulse in the one line to the atom 
is but another name for gravity ; hence the energy of 
gravity in all matter must be directly as the quantity 
of matter. 

In reference to the other aspect of the ratio we note 
that from the nature of the given force the atom is a 
sphere with its intenser solid core, and its less intense 
though solid peripheral shell, so made by the inter- 
penetrations of the forces in their plates and the com- 
position of. their pressures spherically in common. 
Hence the shell of the atom, inappreciable in thick- 
ness, enspheres its central core, and in all its parts 
presses upon the central core with the same intensity, 
in the aggregate, as the intensity of antagonism in 
the central core. And then again, at an inappreciable 



188 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



distance out from the body of the shell, the surround- 
ing contiguous impulses act in upon the shell, in an 
inappreciable expansion of each, enabling all to sur- 
round and fully ensphere the shell, but in no action 
and reaction laterally each with each, and so consti- 
tuting a shell of impulses, not bodily force, and yet in 
it's aggregate intensity pressing upon the atomic bod- 
ily shell to an equal amount as that pressed upon the 
core of the atom, and equally also as the intensity of all 
the forces is in the core of the atom ; so that the in- 
tensity of this shell of expanding impulses is, in the 
aggregate, as the aggregate intensity of the shell of 
the atom, and the whole expanded shell of impulses 
together presses upon the shell of the atom with the 
same intensity as that whole shell presses upon the 
core. And in the same way, at any inappreciable 
remove from the last contemplated shell, there is con- 
templated another concentric shell ensphering the for- 
mer with an intensity in the aggregate equal to that 
in the aggregate of each interior shell, and acting di- 
rectly upon the shell next within it, with the same in- 
tensity in the aggregate as that inner shell has, in the 
aggregate, acted upon its next interior shell. In this 
manner, all the surrounding impulses counterworking 
at the central core constitute an indefinite number of 
concentric shells, and eaqh one receiving the whole 
energy towards the centre in an equal degree of ag- 
gregate intensity with every other shell. The inten- 
sity of impulse at each point in any shell, or surface 
of points, is of course inversely as the surface. But 



THE ATOM DETERMINES GRAVITY. 189 

the surfaces of spheres are directly as the squares of 
their distances from their centres ; therefore the amount 
of intensity of impulse at each point of a shell, or 
surface, is inversely as the square of its distance from 
the centre. And as this intensity of impulse is but 
another name for gravity, therefore gravity must be 
inversely as the square of the distance. 

The law of gravity being such, in the very consti- 
tution of the atom itself, the results of the action of 
the atoms among themselves are alike necessary and 
readily determined. The gravitating simple impulses 
around all atoms, for an indefinite distance, must se- 
cure that any two atoms shall each be affected by the 
other according to the universal laws of motion. As 
the solid atoms stand each within the other's gravi- 
tating energy, and the single impulses of each come 
into itself from beyond the other, and these impulses 
must be cut off from working on its own atom, aud 
converted to an impulsive action upon the other in 
each case so far as the impulses reach beyond the 
other, and such working must be according to their 
energies directly and inversely as the square of the 
distance one from the other, the result must be 
that the atoms shall be pushed towards each other, 
and finally meet, at some point determined by the 
compounding of their momenta, and which must 
be between their original positions, and then the 
atoms must stand at rest in contact with each 
other. Freely moving in space, the gravitating en- 
ergy, in many atoms combined, must bring them 



190 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

together equally about some common centre, and 
ensphere them ; and in the case of rigid bodies in 
masses, each will have somewhere its own centre of 
gravity, and act upon others in the line of their cen- 
tres of gravity, and the whole on coming together 
must collocate in such place as their own fixed forms 
shall allow them to fill. The Atom has in its consti- 
tution every fact of Gravity. 

8. The Atom prom its Constitution is a Magnet. 
— The construction of the atom in circular move- 
ment of the component impulses on their points of 
antagonism, and by a slight deflection' at the start 
making the circular motion to be spiral, and in the 
contrary movements of the opposing impulses making 
the whole movement to be also helical, secured the 
shutting the atom in upon itself, and thereby ren- 
dering its intrinsic integrity inviolable ; and also set 
the impulses in positions to act every way in upon 
its' centre, and thereby determining to its perpetual 
gravity. A further result, for its subsequent utility 
in the ends of creation which we are now to notice, 
is the bi-polar agency in the atom which is thus made 
persistent in it. 

The gravitating impulses as spiritual activities 
come in to their central core with a returnless flow, 
and thus perpetuate the solid matter of the atom in 
their • central place of mutual action and reaction, 
while external to the solid body of the atom, the im- 
pulses are in flowing energies that can reveal them- 



THE ATOM IS A MAGNET. 191 

selves to sense, only by their effect upon palpable 
matter which may come within their sphere of action. 
So now, also, we are to notice another form of energy, 
which has no bodily consistency, and is purely spirit- 
ual activity in persistent flowing progression, with 
no set-back upon its originating source ; even as the 
spiritual activity which impels the stone I throw, 
never returns in reaction upon the source it sprang 
from. The antagonizing impulses constituting the 
ovei't forces in the atom, and the energy turning 
them as they are created in their helical circuits, are 
the products respectively of two distinct wills in the 
Absolute Reason, and this helical turning of the bi- 
polar energy, distinct from the gravitating energy, 
is that which exclusively we now contemplate. This 
acts upon the gravitating energies in turning them, 
but does not augment, nor diminish, nor divert from 
their central incoming, the energies of the gravitat- 
ing impulses. It carries them through the helical 
circuits, but does not identify itself with them, and 
may be of less or greater energy without at all mod- 
ifying the degrees of the gravitating energies. Rela- 
tively to the sphere of the atom, the bi-polar energy 
and the gravitating energies would seem necessarily 
to be of equal ratios, but relatively to each other the 
bi-polar and gravitating energies may differ in any 
intensit}^ of the wills making them. The bi-polar 
energies must find their balance not as the gravi- 
tating, in direct antagonist action and reaction, but 
in the crowding contiguity of the impulses at the 



192 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

atomic polar diameters, and can thus never consti- 
tute the poles to be solid bodies as the gravitating 
impulses do the atom at the centre. 

In further noting determined results from the atom- 
ic construction, it is plain that the bi-polar energy, 
which we henceforth know as Magnetism, must stand 
neutral in polar tendencies in the equatorial plane, 
inasmuch as each way from it the polarity proceeds 
in opposite bearings, and in the completion of the 
atom will crowd the helical circuits more or less 
closely together from the equator to the poles ; and 
at each polar point it must crowd with an intensity 
which equilibrates the energy of its whole hemisphere, 
and be directly proportional in any point of any mag- 
netic meridian as is the approach from the equator to 
the poles. As the magnetic energy reaches the poles 
in the opposite hemispheres by opposite-handed hel- 
ices, there must be specific distinction of polarities, 
and as attained in experience, they have already been 
discriminated as Austral and Boreal polarities. 

The contrary working of the polarities must de- 
termine the mutual action of separate atoms, standing 
within the respective spheres of their magnetic in- 
fluences operating through opposing hemispheres. 
In such cases of mutual approach, in reference re- 
spectively to each other, when two hemispheres of 
different atoms act concurrently in their polar ener- 
gies, they must work in to each other, and draw the 
atoms together ; but when they act adversely, they 
must work to exclude each other, and throw the 



I 



THE ATOM IS A MAGNET. 193 

atoms apart. And as the boreal is in opposite-handed 
helicity to the austral, the polarities presented on 
the approach of two atoms must determine their at- 
tractions and repulsions. When the similar poles of 
each atom are presented each to each, their magnetic 
circuits come in contact on their opposite atomic 
sides, and, of course, with opposite magnetic courses, 
and so running against each other, they must push 
each the other oft", and hence the universal law is 
determined that like poles must repel each other ; 
but when unlike poles approach each other, the 
course of polarity runs in to each other, and pulls 
the atoms together, and the universal law is deter- 
mined that unlike poles attract each other. When 
either pole is applied to the magnetic equator, its 
neutrality can effect neither, and the polarities pass 
on in their own courses. 

This bi-polar energy in opposing currents must 
also give its determinations to the magnetic Dip. 
Two atoms standing near to each other with their 
equators in the same plane will attract or repel 
equally in their respective opposite hemispheres, 
and their polar diameters must stand parallel each 
to each. But when atoms are combined in larger 
and smaller bodies, and the bodies stand to each 
other in such disparity of Mass that their polar 
action appears only in the smaller body, if then the 
smaller body be suspended on its centre of gravity, 
thereby holding in check the gravitating results, 
the magnetic energy will alone work and determine 
13 



194 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



its dip or inclination to the larger magnet. When 
put between the equator and the pole of the larger, 
the magnetic axis of the smaller most incline to that 
of the larger, from the inequality of attractions or 
repulsions mutually between their respective hemi- 
spheres ; and the inclination must be the greater as 
the smaller magnet approaches the pole of the larger 
magnet, and perpendicular to the axis when brought 
to the pole. 

Such combinations of free atoms will make- the 
bodies magnetic ; and if the atomic polarity is hin- 
dered by the gravitating energy, or by cohesion, the 
bodies may be in a quiescent state when their polarity 
is neutralized, and indifferent when their atoms are 
fixed. The presence of an acting magnet may dis- 
turb the equilibrium, and the quiescent magnet then 
becomes active by induction. The body holding its 
atoms so fixed as to move by induction tardily, and 
hold its magnetism in protracted action when the 
inducing magnet is withdrawn, is said to have coer- 
cive force, and the more ready induction by repeated 
shocks, like strokes upon a steel bar, is well ex- 
plained by so freeing the atoms When the induc- 
tion is immediate, and quiescence comes at once on 
removing the inducing magnet, the body is said to 
have no coercive force, and the giving coercive force by 
condensing, as hammering a soft iron bar, is explained 
by the fixing of the component atoms. And so bodies 
with different degrees of coercive force in patch- 
es, may by the inducing magnet give consecutive 



THE ETHEREAL ATOM. 195 

polarity — as the patches may favor. The polarity 
of the inducing magnet must determine the different 
poles in the induced by the control given to its inner 
atoms. As the atoms freely determine the body to 
be a magnet, so the breaking the body in fragments 
will by its atoms make each piece a magnet. Equal- 
ities of gravitating and magnetic energies must give 
coincident gravitating, magnetic, and geometric axes ; 
and any inequalities among the atoms, in this way, 
must make these axes discordant. 



SECOND DIVISION. 

diremptive foece. 

1. The Constitution op the Diremptive Atom. — 
The creative process in diremption is the reverse 
of that in antagonism. An explosion from one source 
would give distinct diremptive forces, each of which 
would be an outsending of two expulses in contrary 
directions, and all of which would fill a sphere with 
expulses from a centre in every direction. The 
ejecting source is a spiritual agency, and yet the 
expulses ejected must be contemplated as reciprocal 
in their outworking, and that the two opposite ex- 
pulses make force only as they mutually expel each 
other. 



196 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



In the contemplation of antagonist Force we assist- 
ed ourselves by figuring the activity which casts a 
stone from the earth, and we may here help ourselves 
further by continuing to use the same figure. The 
muscular activity in the hand against the stone is 
balanced by the muscular activity of the foot against 
the earth, and the earth and stone are expelled from 
each other in equilibrated momentum by the same 
spiritual agency, and the mutual disparting of the 
expulses in that source is one force in two outgoing 
directions. As, then, the man's spirit works both 
ways from the mid-source in disparting the stone 
and the earth, so we now contemplate the Absolute 
Spirit putting forth two simple activities balancing 
themselves in mutual expulsiveness. In the diremp- 
tive limit is force, and each expnlse has an energy 
measured by the central force. We contemplate, 
also, the expulses as sent out from the manifesting 
Agency constantly in one and the same place, and 
as created, to be turned also out of this place, by the 
forming Agency, in revolving upon their diremptive 
limit, as the antagonist forces were perpetually cre- 
ated and moved. The forming spirit so directs them 
at the start, that in making a complete revolution, 
the expulses of the first made force just pass those 
of the last made, and then proceed each on opposite 
sides of the plane formed, and in contrary directions 
respectively, till they fill the hemispheres, and finish 
a completed sphere, whose polar diameter is then 
these first made diremptive expulses, standing exact- 



THE ETHEREAL ATOM. 197 

ly perpendicular to their first position in the plane. 
The expulses are thus all balanced, and constitute 
a diremptive Atom, independent and complete as the 
former antagonist Atom. 

In diremption the expulses go out, as in antago- 
nism the impulses came in, and they interpulsate by 
their action and reaction as the impulses interpene- 
trated by their action and reaction ; and so the limit 
of diremption is not a plane, but a bodily plate, 
through and through implicated by the expulses 
commingling from opposite sides. As the antagonist 
atom was a sphere with central intenser core and 
peripheral less intense shell, so the diremptive atom 
in reverse working will be an impervious sphere of 
intenser diremption at the core, and less diremptive 
energy in the shell, and the expulses going off from 
the shell in every direction indefinitely, in the same 
inverse ratio to the distance as the impulses came 
gravitating inward. The antagonist we shall know 
as Material, and the diremptive as Ethereal Atom; 
and while material atoms have weight, the ethereal 
atoms will be imponderable. The body of the ethe- 
real atom from its implicated interpulsations is the 
common source for the outgoing expulses, and any 
hinderance to the expulsion on any side will pro- 
portionally augment the expulsion in all other sides, 
with the perpetual tendency to restore the equilib- 
rium by the same energy as that of the assailing 
obstacle, and must thereby be made thoroughly 
elastic; while the material atom can give no expul- 



198 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

sions, and must thus be utterly non-elastic. Un- 
mingled with material atoms, the pure ether any 
way stricken must perpetually vibrate through all 
its sphere, while interposed material atoms will ob- 
struct vibrations. Two Atoms of opposite kinds and 
equal energies will impel and expel each other in 
equal measure, and thus lie together at rest side by 
side, and any amount of ether tending to diffusion 
will be held in place by equal external material 
energies. The ethereal atom is the converse of the 
material, and they may drive or dead-lock each other 
according to their unequal or equal energies. 

2. Ethereal Atoms occasion Heat and Light. — 
As the still Air has no sound, and while in vibration 
is yet noiseless, except as the vibrations strike the 
ear, so the ether has neither warmth nor color, except 
as its vibrations strike the organ, and put its living 
apparatus in operation. The objective is qualified in 
our subjective sensation, and it is of the subjective 
affection we speak when talking of sound, or of heat 
and light. Still the stroke upon the bell or a strained 
cord modifies the medium of sound, though there be 
no ear to catch the modulations and make them audi- 
ble ; and so the ethereal vibrations modify the medium 
of heat and light where there are no organs to be 
affected and made sensible. It is this efficiency to 
modify the media of heat and light which we here 
contemplate quite irrespective of the affection in the 
organ ; even that to which we apply our therm ome- 



! 



ETHEREAL ATOMS OCCASION HEAT AND LIGHT. 199 

ters and photometers, to test the intensity of the 
energy before there is any action upon our senses. 
This outer causative of inner sensation is what we 
put beneath the insight of the reason as known heat 
and light, prior to all sensible warmth and color. 
The diffused ethereal Atoms constitute the Ether, £ 
and this in rapid vibration is the heat which will 
become sensible to touch, and the light which will 
affect the visual organ. In our future contemplation 
of matter as compounded in bodies, we shall find 
these bodies so constituted as everywhere to permit 
the diffusion of the ether through them, and thus 
giving occasion for the vibratory action to send heat 
or light to every part. The slower vibrations wake 
the less quick sense of touch, and the quicker and 
shorter vibrations affect the more sensitive organ of 
vision, and the same body may be impervious to one, 
although readily transmitting the other. 

Vibration of the Ether must differ from vibration of 
molecular matter, since the ethereal atom as diremp- 
tive must compress the expulses, when stricken, in 
the line of impact, and augment the energies of those 
expulses standing perpendicularly to the line of im- 
pact, and thus as the wave progresses, the swelling 
must be transverse the course, as if the atoms were 
so many bubbles alternately pressed and relaxed in 
their journey. But an Antagonist atom can have no 
compression and dilatation which may elongate its 
diameter transverse its line of movement, and hence 
the rhythmical oscillations of matter must be an 



200 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 






advance and return longitudinally with the line of 
travel. The distinction in vibrator}' velocity ex- 
pounds the thermal motion to the touch, and the 
illuminating movement to the vision, when we have 
the temperature of a metal ball heated to the touch 
while yet dark to the sight, and rising in intensity 
through a dusky red, and a bright red, to the highest 
white heat. Bodies which quickly catch and check 
vibrations must as readily transmit them, and thus 
as they absorb they equally radiate, and where they 
fix and latently compress, they must again start into 
vibration when freed from their static equilibrium ; 
just as the coal-measures give out on combustion 
their latent intensity of vibratory energy compressed 
within them. And so all the phenomena of the spec- 
trum, including the thermal, colored, and chemical 
rays, find their determinations in the motion of the 
ethereal vibrations through certain media. 

We shall further on see the determined diffusions 
and relative arrangements of material and ethereal 
atoms ; we here need only to anticipate, that they 
will be multiplied and mingled in varied wa}'s and 
proportions. As everywhere interfused amid ma- 
terial bodies and entering into their construction, 
the Ether, as all-pervasive, will give to its vibrations 
the energy of the mass, and be sufficient to stretch 
the toughest metals and break the strongest bands. 
Continued material friction, or strong compression, 
or percussion gives proportional ethereal agitation, 
and sensible heat or light is determined by the 






ETH. REAL ATOMS OCCASION HEAT AND LIGHT. 201 

motion. Even congealed bodies have their diffused 
ether, which may be put in motion sufficient to work 
their liquefaction. The more rapid vibrations are 
luminous, and havo in them all the determinate laws 
of optical science. Reflection, diffraction, double- 
refraction, polarization, chromatic aberration, lumi- 
nous interference, &c, may all be comprehended in 
the reason, by an insight into the forces which 
underlie and condition all phenomena of vision, as 
giving rise to all the varied affections of the sentient 
organism for light and .liade, and all the phenomena 
of feeling in varied sensations of heat, and its absence, 
as cold. 

Thus far we have attained a speculative insight 
into the essential being of force, in its two varieties 
of antagonism and diremption ; and with little danger 
of mistaking have found the laws of motion, inertia, 
gravity, and magnetism in material atoms, and the 
determinations of heat and light in ethereal atoms. 
But in contemplating in advance the compositions 
and conversions of these distinguishable forces ac- 
cording to their mechanical laws of interworking, 
modifications and combinations come in, so widely 
changing inner connections and outer appearances, 
that the increasing complications soon reach beyond 
clear discrimination. The simple compositions of 
forces, empirically beyond explanation, holding the 
elemental facts of physical science, may rationally 
be satisfactorily expounded, and admitted as philo- 



202 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



sophically known, because reasonably interpreted. 
But as we now further proceed, under this Second 
Division, to more complex combinations, we choose 
the speculation should rather be taken as tentative 
than final ; deemed probable, but not in full insight 
to be said infallible ; awaiting further and fuller com- 
prehension, and to which by others may be added 
the determination of more facts, as occasion shall 
be taken. 



3. Ethereal Atoms are the Media op Cohesion. 
— The impulses of an antagonist force implicate them- 
selves in action and reaction in their place of antago- 
nism, and are there not mere impulse, but space-filling 
force. All the impulses of the atom so implicate 
themselves at their common central place of antago- 
nism, and thus constitute the atom a solid sphere with 
intenser central core and less intense superficial shell, 
outside of which the impulses are coming in from 
every side. Should an additional impulse be sent in 
upon the shell at any part of the atom, it must direct- 
ly antagonize therewith in action and reaction, and 
there, in its implication with the old shell, begin the 
formation of a new exterior shell, and so far as other 
added impulses should contiguously implicate them- 
selves with the old, a new outer shell would thereby 
be constituted, and the diameter of the atom on that 
side be so much elongated. The new shell would co- 
here with the old, and become an incorporation with 
the solid atom. 



: 






ETHEREAL ATOMS MEANS OP COHESION. 203 

But no material atom may so work its impulses into 
another, since they each work in upon themselves 
respectively ; and when the impulses come in to each 
from beyond the other, they can only crowd the atoms 
together as gravity without incorporating them cohe- 
sively. An ethereal atom, however, may stand be- 
tween two material atoms, and its expulses will each 
way incorporate in their implications, and the two ma- 
terial atoms with the intervening ethereal atom will 
be made firmly coherent, proportioned to the energy 
of the implicating expulses and the intensity of the 
old shells. Any number of such cohering atoms may 
be brought and held together by their mutual attrac- 
tions, or by external pressure ; and if some so shield 
the ethereal by the surrounding material atoms as to 
exclude all heat vibration, there will be a molecule in- 
dissoluble by outer violence. These atomic implica- 
tions may well be conceived to be in such peculiar 
primitive methods as to constitute the sixty-six, or 
whatever number there may be, of the " simple sub- 
stances," so called, as the elementary bases of all co- 
hering bodies. When those component molecules 
firmly cohere, they will constitute solid bodies ; when 
they admit of rolling one upon another, they will be in 
ujlitid state ; aud when more widely separated by inter- 
posed ethereal atoms, they will be gaseous. So may 
be formed all kinds of coherency in the varieties of 
density, porosity, hardness, brittleness, flexibility, duc- 
tility, malleability, and capacity for welding. In mere 
cohesion, the body is made up of the component ingre- 



204 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



dients, and is what the molecules are, whether of a 
single kind, or of blended substances. 



4. Molecules, reciprocally neutralizing their 
Forces in Cohesion, determine Chemical Combina- 
tions. — The Atom is indivisible and essentially un- 
changeable, but one differs from others in intensity, 
and thus in gravity, or weight, and magnetic energy. 
These unite, material and ethereal, to form the primi- 
tive molecules ; and inasmuch as the atoms of the same 
intensity, respectively, must enter into the composi- 
tion of the same kind of primitive molecules, so all 
primitive molecules, that are the same in substance, 
must be of equal weight ; and it is with these primi- 
tive molecules that chemistry is chiefly conversant, and 
when secondary molecules are formed of the primi- 
tive and brought in composition, they, too, must have 
those of like substance to be of the same weight. 
Chemical compounds must therefore be formed upon 
the general principles of isometry, determining the 
same measures to the same compounds in all cases. 
If, sometimes, the same primitive molecule modifies 
its own intensity by exposure to light-vibrations, or 
enters in composition with others by interposing the 
ethereal atoms differently, such comparatively rare 
exceptions will furnish instances of what has been 
called allotropism, as in the conversion of oxygen to 
ozone, or the altered capacity of chlorine to combine 
with hydrogen in darkness, when it has been exposed 
a while to strong sunlight ; and also of changed com- 



MOLECULAR FORCES GIVE CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 205 

position, like charcoal and graphite, from the same 
primitive substance, carbon; but in such cases the 
modification makes, for the time, the molecule to be 
of a different nature. The change in ethereal compo- 
sition determines the allotropism, and such exceptions, 
so determined, need not be here further regarded. 

The composition of the molecule from the atoms 
determines that unlike poles must attract and hold the 
atoms together from within the molecule, and thus the 
opposite polarities must stand out in the surface of the 
molecule in contrary directions respectively, giving 
opposite polarities to the constituted molecule. Such 
molecules, therefore, as attract each other by their 
concurrent polarities, will determine their affinity, and 
as they can enter into composition permanently only 
so far as they balance in gravity and magnetism, the 
molecules in affinity must also stand to each other in 
composition as exact equivalents, and the proportions 
in weight with which any two bodies come in compo- 
sition is that in which they must respectively be com- 
pounded with every other. Thus, inasmuch as the 
proportioned weight of oxygen is 8, and that of car- 
bon 6, the carbon must always take the oxygen in 
composition in the proportion of 8, or some equal mul- 
tiple of 8, since the primitive molecule of oxygen 
cannot be broken into any fractions; and then the 
carbon at each varying multiple of the oxygen must 
give a different substance. So carbon and oxygen in 
their primary proportions give carbonic oxide; and car- 
bon with another proportion of oxygen, as first multi- 



206 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

pie or double in composition, is carbonic acid. So 
always, when two substances combine with a third, 
the two must be equivalent with the third, and the 
like compound must always have the like equivalent 
proportions. As 1 of hydrogen is equivalent to 8 
oxygen, and 35 chlorine also to 8 oxygen, so 1 of hy- 
drogen and 35 of chlorine must be equivalents. The 
law of equivalents is determined from the atomic 
forces, both in the primitive molecules and all subse- 
quent compounds. 

When molecules simply cohere, they stand un- 
changed in their sensible properties, for they are 
only the same forces joined in extension. But when 
they come together in chemical affinity, and stand to 
each other as balancing equivalents, they mutually 
neutralize each other in their old energies, whether 
of gravity or magnetism, and the compound must, 
therefore, stand forth in determined new energies, 
and be a third thing, unlike either of its constituents. 
This is known as peculiarly chemical combination, in 
distinction from mere cohesion. Composition may be 
applied generically to both, but the composition must 
neutralize the component elements, and make them to 
be wholly lost in a new substance, in order to become 
chemical combination. When the elements stand to- 
gether as joined only by affinity, but not so as com- 
pletely to neutralize their separate energies, it is 
known as a state of indefinite combination ; and only 
when the unity is to the complete nulliBcation of old 
energies is it known as a state of definite combination. 









I 



MOLECULAR FORCES GIVE CHEMICAL COMBINATION. 207 

So is it with the elements of nitrogen and oxygen; 
they stand together in affinity in the common air we 
breathe, yet do they not completely neutralize their 
respective energies, and thus the atmosphere of our 
earth is but an instance of indefinite combination. So 
the proportions of hy. 1 and ox. 8 may stand in an in- 
definite combination by their mere attraction; but by 
the violent agitation of an electric shock they are 
completely neutralized, and become a definite combi- 
nation in the wholly new substance of water. In 
given cases the ingredients may separately be noxious 
and the compound salutary, or the reverse order may 
occur. Combination of the elements can occur only 
as they are in dissolution, though in frequent cases 
the affinity may have sufficient force to dissolve their 
previous combination. 

In cases of definite action of affinity, the combining 
elements rush in contact with more or less violence, 
and the concussion must induce proportional molecu- 
lar vibration, agitating the ether, and thus converting 
the force of affinity into heat ; and hence is determined 
the general law of chemical combination, that the 
definite action of affinity induces heat. But, on the 
other hand, as we shall soon more fully notice, the 
point of solution requires an additional interfusion of 
ethereal atoms between the molecules, that they may 
flow over, or turn one upon another, and which ethe- 
real atoms are there so held as to check their heat- 
vibration, and thus render so much heat-energy to 
stand neutralized or latent, thereby inducing so much 



208 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

negation of sensible heat, which is so much positive 
cold, and which a mere indefinite combination of the 
solved molecules does not release; and thereby is 
determined the general law, that the indefinite ac- 
tion of chemical affinity must induce cold. The heat 
in definite action of affinity is a positive generation, 
by the conversion to it of another force ; but in 
indefinite action, the suspended heat necessary for 
fluid solution is so much cold still held unrelieved. 
So, in all cases of chemical combination, the forces 
necessarily inducing and determining it are already 
in the elements, and wherever occasion is given by 
their solution and approach within the sphere of the 
action of their affinities, the complementary elements 
as chemical equivalents must come together, neutral- 
izing their old action, and passing into a new form 
must thereby become another substance. 

5. Thermal Vibrations determine Solidity or 
Fluidity. — The ethereal atoms, as media of cohe- 
sion in solid bodies, are susceptible to the vibrations 
of applied heat, and in the consequent agitation the 
cohesive texture of the body is loosed and weakened. 
As the applied heat-vibrations intensify, and the ther- 
mometer rises, the body expands proportionally up to 
a certain point ; but just as the molecules of the body 
are coming in solution, portions of the vibrating ethe- 
real atoms are taken in to the dissolving molecules, 
and held there in static equilibration, thereby giving 
occasion for these material molecules to roll, one 






THERMAL VIBRATIONS DETERMINE FLUIDITY. 209 

molecule upon another, in incipient fluidity. This 
interfusion of the ethereal atoms checks and neutral- 
izes so much sensible heat-vibration, and the point 
is known as point of fusion, and the suspended heat- 
vibration is known as latent heat of fusion. 

Different substances, of course, will have their 
points of fusion at different degrees of temperature, 
but for the same substance this mid-point between 
fluid and solid must ever be of the same tempera- 
ture ; and to maintain the substance in its fluidity at 
that, point, so much heat-energy is necessarily there 
suspended in the interposed ethereal atoms. Other 
molecular cohesions are then dissolved in the body, 
and ethereal atoms further interposed ; and these, with 
all the former dissolved molecules, are free to flow"one 
over another, and thus the body enters into a fluid state. 
The augmenting degrees of applied heat liquefy in 
succession the cohering molecules, till the whole body 
becomes dissolved, and the mass is made fluid. 

When, on the other hand, abstraction of heat is 
made persistently from the fluid state, and the mole- 
cules approach the point between fusion and solidity, 
the interposed ethereal atoms are there found, with 
their suspended heat-vibration, held as latent heat 
of fusion ; and as the heat-energy diminishes, the 
molecular attractions avail to bring the material ele- 
ments violently together, and disengage the ethereal 
atoms, to return to their vibratory activity, from their 
latent suspended energy, and which continues till the 
whole latent heat of fusion is released, and all the 
14 



210 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

molecules cohere in solidity. The latent heat may 
be measured as released, and the different degrees 
for different substances ascertained. The mid-point 
between solidity and fusion is fixed for the same sub- 
stance ; but in careful quiet, the ethereal atoms may 
not find release till the abstraction of heat has been 
carried some below this mid-point of temperature, 
when the slightest shock throws them out, and brings 
the mass at once to the normal mid-point of tempera- 
ture. A body slow, and as if obstinate in its melting 
and cooling, is said to be refractory ; but few only resist 
all degrees of applied heat. Carbon is found insolu- 
ble practically, but its crystallization in the Diamond 
must have occurred in a state near to fusion by ap- 
plication of intense heat from some quarter. Oils 
loose and fix their cohering molecules slowly, and 
have a considerable interval for softening and harden- 
ing between their solid and fluid states, while Mercu- 
ry passes almost instantly from one state to another. 
The semi-fluid state of iron at a given temperature 
makes it capable of welding, by a forcible interpene- 
tration of two detached pieces. 

Two different substances which decompose each 
other by their molecular attractions when brought 
in contact, and yet do not recombine, may take from 
themselves the heat necessary to supply the latent 
heat of fusion when so placed that it cannot other- 
wise be attained ; and by a succession of such con- 
tacts and solutions the sensible heat may be with- 
drawn and fixed in a latent state, and the most 









MAGNETIC POLARITIES DETERMINE CRYSTALLOGENY. 211 

intense cold ultimately induced. Such are known 
as freezing mixtures; and the most refractory sub- 
stances become in this way solidified, as alcohol has 
been solidly congealed at a temperature of -150° Fahr. 
The liberation of the latent heat of fusion, radiat- 
ing in a sensible form, is an exclusion of so much 
diremptive force from the body as standing in its 
solid state, and which must determine that matter 
in ordinary solidification shall be of less volume than 
when in fusion. In mere cohesion, with no crystal- 
lization, the molecules come in contact, and their im- 
pulses become mutually implicated, with the media 
of fewer ethereal atoms than when they stand as 
fluid, and the vibratory action, which kept them so 
separate that they readily rolled upon each other, 
has also so diminished in their solid state, that they 
now interlock each with each ; and hence they must 
occupy less space for the same mass, and the solid 
is a contraction from its fluid form. Some substances 
will part with more ethereal atoms in solidifying 
than others, and some require less intense vibration 
to be neutralized in the latent heat of fusion than 
others ; hence different substances contract different- 
ly in solidifying, but the same substance has the same 
contraction at all times of cooling. 

6. Heat and peculiar Polarity determine Crys- 
tallogeny. — Dana's System of Mineralogy has a 
Section divided into Practical and Speculative Crys- 
tallogeny ; and from the varieties of crystals occasion 



212 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



is taken, speculatively, to show what form and polar 
action the molecule must originally possess to induce 
the geometrical solids which the real crystals in na- 
ture present, and also the modified conditions which 
may secure blended and compound crystals, both 
paragenie and metagenic. An acuteness and clear- 
ness of insight are herein exhibited that may scarce- 
ly find a parallel in the whole range of theoretic 
science. From the observed phenomena it deter- 
mines what forces the molecules must intrinsically 
possess, in order that they should build themselves 
up in such solid geometrical figures. But with the 
speculative knowledge of force in its own essence 
as already attained, both antagonist and diremptive, 
and also the essential constitution of magnetic po- 
larity, we are in a position to contemplate the facts 
of crystallogeny still more clearly, and know their 
law more profoundly and comprehensively. 

Mere cohesion of molecules may occur under all 
varieties' of force or partially constrained action of 
their polarities, and thus bodies must widely differ 
in internal arrangement of their component mole- 
cules. Ordinary solidification will present the ma- 
terial body with no indices of inner selection and 
formal arrangement, for the molecules have come 
together in promiscuous compression from violence 
or their own gravitating attraction only. But if 
some combination of atoms secure special configura- 
tion of molecules, it may readily be determined how 
the atomic forces may be so combined, in the mole- 



MAGNETIC POLARITIES DETERMINE CRYSTALLOGENT. 213 

cules of some specific substances as to secure their 
self-construction of regular solids in various forms 
of crystallization, when the substances strike to- 
gether from a state of solution according to the 
polarities of their molecules ; and such polar action 
must give the law to the crystallogeny of the 
specific substances. 

We may contemplate, as a distinct case, four materi- 
al atoms encircling an ethereal atom, and as pairs the 
lines of their polar diameters intersecting each other 
at right angles in the centre of the ethereal atom, and 
we shall have a molecule of two lateral axes, and 
their opposite terminations of dissimilar polarities. 
The solidity may be completed by another pair of 
material atoms with their lines of polarity intersect- 
ing these lateral axes perpendicularly in their com- 
mon point, and this will constitute a vertical axis with 
dissimilar polarities of the opposite extremities. Such 
completed molecule would be circumscribed by a 
sphere having three equal axes, all at right angles. 
Such molecules in solution would so pile themselves 
together by their polarities, as would freely-moving 
magnetic buck-shot, equilibrating both their gravitat- 
ing and magnetic energies. The determined form must 
be a cubic geometrical solid, and such cubic base will 
be the nucleus of the forming crystal. Should the 
escaping heat, or an intenser polarity, favor the taking 
of a molecule at each terminus of the vertical axis at 
the same time, and thereby neutralizing and so far sup- 
pressing the working of the attractions in the termini 



214 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

of the lateral axes, the result, instead of a cubic 
solid, must be the cutting off the cubic faces to the 
converging faces of a pyramid on each side of the 
common base, and building up the crystal to a regular 
octahedron : or in another modification of balanced po- 
larities, the normal cubic faces may have their twelve 
edges suppressed and cut into the twelve faces of a 
regular dodecahedron. The controlling polarities will 
determine the modifications of the accumulations about 
the termini of the axes, and all possible peculiarities 
of regular growth, from two lateral axes and one 
vertical axis mutually perpendicular, will come within 
one Division of scientific crystallogeny which may 
be known as the Monometric System. 

Or, again, there may be contemplated two ethereal 
atoms in the midst of surrounding material atoms, 
so making a vertical axis, through their line, longer 
than the two lateral axes which should intersect, per- 
pendicularly thereto, in a common point at the contact 
of the two mid ethereal atoms ; and such completed 
molecule would be circumscribed by an ellipsoid, 
and the ellipse which any axial bisection would 
make on revolving upon the axis would describe 
an ellipsoid of revolution, and having a vertical 
axis longer than the two equal lateral axes, and 
all the axes at right angles with each other. Such 
molecules freely piling themselves together by their 
equal polarities at the axial termini, instead of con- 
stituting cubic crystals, as before, would build up- 
right square prisms; and by modified polarities, as 



MAGNETIC POLARITIES DETERMINE CRYSTALLOGENT. 215 

in the former case, the right square prism would 
be changed for a right square octahedron. Another 
Division of scientific crystallizing will here include 
all its varieties of crystalline form, and may be known 
as the Diametric System. 

Other modes of combined ethereal and material 
atoms constitute the molecules of peculiar shape 
and attraction that determine all other Divisions of 
crystallogenic systems. The energies are in the 
molecules which reciprocally each with each, and 
under the conditions of outlying forces, determine 
the geometrical solids of all forms of crystals. Cir- 
cumstantial interferences and inequalities induce 
the abnormal varieties of double crystals, truncated 
angles, bevelled edges, and secondary faces ; but all 
follow as the determined resultants in the composition 
and resolution of their working forces. Many crystals 
have one form with one set of molecular substances, 
and other forms if the substances are blended ; and 
in some cases crystallization cannot come into any 
form of a geometrical solid in the absence of specific 
conditional ingredients. Universal law is manifest, 
though complications often run beyond the discrim- 
inating insight. 

This reciprocity and neutralization of inhering 
energies determine the varieties of the joined axes 
to sides, or edges, or angles ; and the meeting of the 
molecules where there is least intervention of mediat- 
ing ethereal atoms determines the lines of cleavage, 
while the peculiar interfusions of the ethereal atoms 



216 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

in the interstices between the molecules determine 
all the optical modifications of transparency, trans- 
lucency, refraction, diffraction, and chromatic Mend- 
ings of colors in different crystals. Solidification of 
uncrystallizable substances, as above noticed, part 
with heat-vibration and some of their ethereal atoms, 
and thus contract their volume ; but in crystallization 
there is the necessary interposition of new ethereal 
atoms through all the interstices of the regularly 
arranged molecules, and thus the volume is expanded. 
The amount of ether thus used differs in different 
substances, and thus different crystals have different 
degrees of expansion ; but in all cases the expansion 
from the introduction, and the vibratory energy given 
from the pressure of the universal ether, is sufficient 
to burst the hardest rocks and toughest metals, if they 
stand in resistance. All the phenomena of crystalliza- 
tion stand expounded in its determining forces. 

7. Heat-vibration determines Vaporization. — 
When a solid becomes fluid, we have seen that the 
heat-vibrations dissolve the fixed cohesions made 
by the solid implications of the impulses and expulses 
of the joint forces, and that ethereal atoms have 
additionally been interposed between the material 
molecules sufficient to hold them separate in their 
point of fusion, and where has been suspended the 
iatent heat of fusion ; but now we note from this state 
of fusion the augmented expansions of the heat-energy 
in the fluid onward to the state of vapor. The fluid 



I 



THERMAL VIBRATION DETERMINES VAPORIZATION. 217 

mass rolls easily upon its own molecules, and por- 
tions break off readily even by their own gravity ; 
but the whole matter flowing or sundering in parts 
is still held at the point of fusion. The increasing 
heat-vibrations, however, induce wider molecular ex- 
pansions silently and thoroughly. When by heat- 
solution the fluid has been carried to the point for 
vaporization, the dissolved molecules from their fluid- 
ity to this point demand the interposition, further, 
of other ethereal atoms to fix and hold them in their 
state as vapor. In such interposition of heat-atoms, 
a specific degree of heat-vibration is held suspended, 
and which is retained in perpetuating the state of 
vaporization ; and so much as is demanded for keep- 
ing the molecules apart as vapor is known as the 
latent heat of vapor; and this amount differs, not 
only in different substances largely, but also in small 
degrees in the same substance. 

Why the latent heat of vapor is not a fixed quan- 
tity, in the same substance, is determined by the 
inequality of the spheres of vibration surrounding 
the molecules to be vaporized, at the different tem- 
peratures of the fluid when the vaporization occurs. 
Water evaporates not only in all degrees of temper- 
ature as water, but also when in congelation at a 
temperature below zero. Enough energy of heat- 
vibration is made to surround some molecules, even 
in congelation, to send them apart as vapor. But 
these spheres of heat-vibration, surrounding the evap- 
orating molecules, must be of less or greater diameter 



218 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

according to the temperature in the fluid outside of 
them. The larger sphere will be within the higher 
temperature, and the smaller sphere within the lower 
temperature, and these unequal spheres will exhaust 
unequal degrees of heat-energy in equilibrating with 
the molecular attractions, which is the amount of the 
latent heat of vapor. 

If the heat-vibrations are persistently maintained 
while the volume of vapor is being compressed, the 
intensity of the vibrations must be augmented as the 
volume diminishes ; and so it must be, that tempera- 
ture, volume, and density of vapor shall be reciprocal 
equivalents. If portions of vapor be separated from 
the mass, and heat be added or subtracted, the pres- 
sure and volume must vary in accordance. Abstrac- 
tion of heat beyond the normal degree of vaporization 
and retention of latent heat of fusion must return 
some molecules to a liquid state, and the abstraction 
sufficiently continued must reduce at length all vapor 
to a fluid, and which process is known as condensa- 
tion. The volume of the vapor lessens as heat is 
withdrawn, but when the vapor is all condensed the 
volume of water is very small compared with that 
of the preceding vapor. The elastic spring and ex- 
pansive energy of the ethereal vibrations in their 
augmenting tension soon become enormous, raising 
immense weights, and overcoming the cohesiveness 
of any known material. The application of steam- 
power might be indefinite if the cohesiveness of 
the boiler-material could be found adequate ; but 



THERMAL VIBRATION DETERMINES COMBUSTION. 219 

earthquakes and volcanoes attest that nothing ter- 
restrial is tough enough to confine it. 

8. Heat-vibration determines Combustion. — Two 
Atoms, one material, the other ethereal, of equal en- 
ergy in their impulses and expulses, and put together 
in a void, would reciprocally equilibrate, and stand 
static side by side. Primitive molecules may also 
stand statically balanced in their equal energies one 
alongside of the other. Their respective polarities, 
also, may bring and hold them together in more or 
less fixed connection, and their implication of im- 
pulses and expulses hold them in firm cohesion. 
Heat-vibrations may then be induced sufficient to 
separate these conjoined or coherent forces, and put 
their static energies in active collision, the vio- 
lence of which will augment in rapid ratio, as the 
number and intensity of the clashing bodies in con- 
cussion shall be increased. The energies of gravity, 
magnetism, and chemical cohesion may thus be con- 
verted into heat-vibrations, making the molecular 
derangements destructively violent. When such 
agitation suffices to make the ether luminous, the 
phenomenon is known as combustion ; and while the 
burning substance retains its form it is said to be on 
fire, and when flying apart as luminous vapor it is 
said to be in fiame, or in a blaze. 

Bodies capable of being so luminously dissolved 
and diffused are known as combustibles ; and such 
substances as in their strong affinities set free the 



220 



KNOWLEDGE OE CREATION. 



combustible molecules are termed supporters of com- 
bustion. Some bodies so strongly cohere as to resist 
all ordinary applications of heat-energy, and are called 
non-combustible, while perhaps no compound bodies, 
above the primitive molecules, are so coherent, or in 
fixed chemical combination, that some possible heat- 
vibrations may not sunder them. The energies gen- 
erating heat-vibrations are the essence of the mate- 
rial and ethereal forces of nature itself; and when 
conditions favor, ordinary non-combustibles become 
inflammable, and the elementary air and ether are on 
fire, and the face of the world is changed from former 
to new combinations. Solid masses part in the con- 
flagration to smoke, cinders, and ashes ; and then the 
conflicting forces settle again in quiet balance in 
those new forms of combination. 

In our most advanced modern science we have the 
very interesting description of the process of com- 
bustion in the blaze of a common candle. On light- 
ing the wick, the tallow melts, and is made inflamma- 
ble according to the following philosophical explana- 
tion. Carbon and hydrogen are constituent elements 
in the tallow, and oxygen is an element in the 
air which surrounds the candle-flame. The oxygen 
and hydrogen have strong reciprocal affinities, and 
their molecules come together in clashes of great 
violence, and put the vapor in intense molecular 
vibration, and this " mode of motion " is the candle- 
blaze. The molecules of carbon and oxygen, also, 
have strong affinities, and strike violently together, 



THERMAL VIBRATION DETERMINES COMBUSTION. 2'21 

constituting in their conflict the intense white-heat 
of the blaze in its most brilliant portion. This col- 
lision is going on in the outer flame, while the yet 
undissolved carbon and hydrogen constitute the dark 
core within the blaze, and which is continually being 
decomposed and so perpetually feeds the flame ; the 
hydrogen and oxygen combine anew, and go off in 
watery vapor, and other portions of oxygen combine 
with the carbon, and go off in carbonic acid, and so 
the flame is lost in the outer while steadily renewed 
from the inner matter. 

But this interest ceases so soon as we strive to 
look within the empty terms, and find ultimately that 
they have no meaning beyond the mere appearance. 
" Affinities " inducing " percussions " and " vibra- 
tions," and thereby making heat as " a mode of mo- 
tion," is certainly saying little for science, and noth- 
ing at all for philosophy. Not only is heat a mode 
of motion, but so are light and sound, and the phenom- 
nal in every sense-organ is a mode of motion ; and 
we know nothing beyond the naked appearance from 
all the set words we use, till in the insight of reason 
we truly find the distinctive forces which modify the 
motions. No words can expound what the mode of 
motion is, till we know what force is, and what the 
distinctive form of force does, and in the insight of 
the essential forces we can clearly determine what 
must be the phenomenal sequences. Carbon and the 
inflammable gases are substantial forces, and they 
dissolve and recombine accordingly as their distinc- 



222 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



tive energies in their impulses and expulses interwork 
with each other. The carbon in the tallow candle 
decomposes in complete combination ; but an intense- 
ly heated diamond, plunged in a volume of oxygen, 
becomes luminous in stars of white light, with no 
decomposition in its stronger carbonic combination. 
The forces in solar vibration fixed in fossil coal-beds 
loose and strike together in new fires, in myriad 
furnaces. The forces alone determine and expound 
the appearances. 



9. Superficial Magnetism, made free, determines 
Electricity. — The composition of molecules into 
larger bodies, fixing them more or less firmly in 
cohesion, will in proportion to the cohesion hinder 
their magnetic action. It can be anticipated of few 
bodies, so molecularly constructed, that they shall 
give free scope to the unhindered working of the 
polarity of their component atoms. But if by any 
interposing forces, siich as that occasioned by heat- 
vibrations, there may be the loosing or dissolving 
of the cohesion, in the case of the superficial mole- 
cules of the body, so as to give to them the com- 
paratively free exercise of their magnetic energy, 
we shall then have them, so far, acting according to 
their inherent mechanical forces, and in obedience to 
the eternal laws of motion. With such freedom for 
the magnetic energy in the surface molecules only of 
the body, while the deeper ones remain fixed in co- 
hesion, there must be a wide modification of the polar 



SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 223 

action, even so far as at first to appear to bo quite 
another force than that of magnetism ; and with so 
much change in the application of its laws, it may 
readily be mistaken as an open field for wholly an- 
other science than that of bringing phenomena within 
the determinations of magnetic action. Such bi-polar 
energy, working only in the surface molecules of ma- 
terial bodies or molecules merely in contact, is elec- 
tricity ; and all the phenomena presented in electrical 
agency will find their complete comprehension in 
such restricted application of magnetic forces. 

Such freed surface-molecules are independent mag- 
nets, according to the polarities which their compo- 
nent atoms give to them, as turned in their outer 
direction opposite to their inner polar unities. They 
reciprocally attract and repel, and mutually arrange 
themselves in polar directions, proportioned to their 
freedom, according to the working of their magnetic 
energy. They still, so far, cohere as to retain each its 
local position, but are so far free as to permit oscilla- 
tion on their centres in their places. The magnetic 
now known as the Electric impulse flows on in the 
extended bodily surface of molecules, transmitting 
itself from one to another from the first movement, 
and only reaches one beyond except as it has worked 
through the one preceding. Should the superficial 
molecules in a body be not so freed from their cohe- 
sion, they can neither take nor impart polar impulses, 
and can therefore be excited by no applied energies 
to exhibit any electrical phenomena. Bodies capable 



224 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

of such excitement may be known as electrics; and 
if so far freed in their molecules as to oscillate to 
and fro sufficient to take and transmit the polar 
energy, they will be known as conductors; but if 
the molecules are only so far freed as to answer 
polar influences passing over its surface without 
sufficient swing to transmit, the body, though an 
electric, would be a non-conductor. A conductor 
entirely surrounded by non-conductors will be known 
as insulated. 

When we contemplate a large body, like our earth, 
in its polar impulses, we note the flow of energy from 
the equator each way to the poles, through all the . 
body, and so each point in each semi-magnetic axis 
is a polar point for its own spherical stratum ; but 
when we contemplate the surface-flow only, it finds 
its static rest in the axial extremities as its poles. 
The flow towards the pole, when pressing directly 
across the filled helical circuits, will be direct in 
meridional lines, and any concurring polar energy 
in that direction will find an unhindered movement, 
until it and the polar flow in the body itself statically 
rest in the polar point. But, should any reverse 
polarity running occurrent to the flow supervene, 
there must at once be an encountered resistance, 
and the occurrent polarity be brought to static rest 
in the speedily balanced antagonism. There must, 
thus, be two kinds of electricity, both in the earth, 
and in all freed superficial molecules belonging to 
smaller bodies connected with the earth. That 



SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 225 

which in the earth flows directly to the pole, and 
in any body near the earth is concurrent with the 
earth's polarity, may be known as positive electricity, 
and that which is occurrent to the polar flow of the 
earth may be known as negative electricity. In all 
cases near our earth, the distinction must be in the 
concurrent, or occurrent polarities. 

Electricity is thus a force, and not a fluid put in 
motion by some assumed agency. A positive and 
negative fluid supposed leaves the whole in its 
mystery, for we must at length inquire with equal in- 
terest as at first, What moves the fluids ? and why do 
they move in opposite directions? The force is the 
essential molecule, and the flowing energies con- 
stituting it determine the movement. This method 
of contemplating electricity will comprehend all 
methods of exciting it, and expound all the phe- 
nomena attending it. 

1. Electricity as excited by friction. Strong mo- 
lecular percussion, we have already seen, converts 
itself into light and heat in the induced ethereal 
vibrations. All collision of material bodies must in 
this way generate heat ; and even so small an amount 
as that generated in the friction of pouring quick- 
silver from one vessel to another may be artificially 
measured. The friction of two bodies rubbed against 
each other, and thus converted into heat-vibration, will 
induce an agitation of the ethereal forces, involved 
in the molecular composition of the body on its sur- 
face, sufficient to free these superficial molecules for 
15 



226 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

the play of their polar energies, and which is but an 
excitement of electricity. The common electrical 
machine has in this its determination, and an ac- 
companying explanation of all the phenomena of its 
action. There is the glass plate or glass cylinder 
with its prepared and applied amalgam rubber, and 
the movement of the glass beneath the rubber sets 
free the molecules in both surfaces. The surface- 
molecules in the glass body are only so freed as to 
become electrically excited, but not so as to transmit 
the energy from one to another, and thus glass is 
found to be a non-conductor ; while the amalgam 
rubber transmits the energy over its surface, and is 
a conductor. The direction of their polar energy in 
the glass surface is found to be occurrent to the 
earth's polar energy, and thus the electricity of the 
molecules is negative, while that of the rubber is 
positive. Here, as glass, the electricity excited is 
ever negative ; but some substances change their 
direction of polarity according to the more or less 
determined form which they or their rubber may 
constitutionally possess. 

As a non-conductor, the glass has an artificially 
arranged row of conducting points placed within 
the sphere of action of the non-conducting mole- 
cules, and which, as points, receive and transmit 
the excited energy so finely and evenly as not to 
disturb the medium through which it passes. The 
glass or the rubber has a conducting connection with 
the earth, as the great static regulator of all smaller 



SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 227 

electric bodies in its connection ; and whichever it 
may bo that is thus connected, the opposite one must 
stand insulated. If the glass be thus connected and 
the rubber insulated, the negative electricity will 
balance itself through the connection, by at once 
standing as a static against the earth's polarity in 
the flow of energy towards the pole; or if the rubber 
be so connected and the glass insulated, then must 
the positive electricity balance itself in the earth's 
magnetic meridian, which it meets, as that stands 
static in the polar point. The kind of electricity 
thus held in static rest must crowd its opposite 
kind, from the limiting point between the glass and 
rubber, out over the connected conducting surface in- 
definitely. Such conducting surface is then said to be 
charged with electricity. The quantity of the charge 
is as the conducting surface, and the intensity or ten- 
dency to find its balance must be equal over a spherical 
surface, greatly augmented at the edges of a plane sur- 
face, and most of all where the surface is pointed. 

As the' polar energies of the molecules determine 
the mode of making the electrical machine, so also 
they expound all the experiments in exciting elec- 
tricity by the machine. Among the more prominent 
and controlling cases may be adduced the following : 
An insulated conductor, in an unexcited and thus a 
natural state, may be placed near to the charged 
conductor so that the impulses of their molecules 
shall reciprocally interact, when, at once, the mole- 
cules in the surface of the uncharged conductor 



228 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

must be excited, and moved in position according 
to the polar energies imparted; and thus this con- 
ductor becomes itseJf charged by induction from 
the former. .This induced charge, having no way 
of escape on account of its insulation, must have 
the kinds of electricity in the action of the poles of 
the molecules both concurrent and occurrent, and 
which must balance themselves in their own super- 
ficial area, thus making a neutral mid-line across the 
conductor, and the dissimilar kind to the exciting 
electricity attracted to the hither, and the similar 
kind expelled to the further side of the neutral line. 
So long as excited and insulated, these induced elec- 
tricities must maintain their places, but must fall 
back to their natural state on removing the indu- 
cing conductor; or, if the induced conductor be con- 
nected with the earth, then must the invading energy 
of the inducing kind of electricity balance itself in 
the earth, and leave to the induced charge only the 
dissimilar kind in action. 

And still further ; such induced charge of unlike 
electricity to that which induced it must react upon 
the inducing conductor, so far neutralizing that 
which in it is like itself, and repelling this to the 
remotest side of the first inducing conductor, thereby 
bringing the kind dissimilar to itself to the nearest 
side, and augmenting the first inducing energy, and in- 
creasing the charge in the second induced conductor. 

These alternately induced and augmenting charges 
in the two conductors must effect what is known as 






SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 229 

condensation of electricity, and which remains stead- 
fast on the last conductor as in a latent state, and is 
sometimes called dissimilar electricity. This falls im- 
mediately to a natural state on the removal or a dis- 
charge of the first conductor. The Leyden Jar, or 
the multiplication of Jars to a Battery, is thus effect- 
ed, and heavy charges of electricity are accumulated. 
A connection with the earth discharges the battery, 
and when, through points in the connecting conduct- 
or, as before shown, it must go off equably and still, 
balancing in the earth with no molecular or ethereal 
vibration. But if the termination of the approaching 
conductor be a ball, or expanded surface, the discharge 
meets and makes a violent percussion with the inter- 
vening forces, and notifies itself in the commotion. 
This is by sound to the ear in the agitation of the at- 
mosphere, and by light to the eye in the vibration of 
the surrounding ether. Both the sound and the light 
or heat are cases of conversion from one form of 
force to another. Thus a cloud of many square miles' 
surface may so be connected at some point with the 
earth by its mist or falling rain as to balance one kind 
of its electricity with the electrical currents of the 
earth, and thereby give occasion for its friction in the 
winds to charge the whole with the dissimilar kind, 
which may a Avhile stand quiet in its insulation; but 
it can have no safe rest till balanced in the earth in 
both electricities. If taken off by points, the air 
knows no commotion ; if taken off by explosive shocks, 
the molecular vibration becomes converted into light- 



230 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

ning through the eye, and into thunder on the ear. 
And so may be determined all the pheuomena of elec- 
tricity excited by friction ; with like and unlike kinds ; 
insulated and uninsulated conductors ; charged and 
discharged ; all is in the constitutional energy of the 
polar activity of freed superficial molecules that com- 
pose material bodies. Some substances are easily 
excited, and some with great difficulty, or not at all ; 
but the force to give all the movements of electrical 
agency is constitutionally in the very construction of 
material atoms, and retained in the molecules of all 
material bodies. 

When an electric battery is made to work its cur- 
rent in an exhausted glass receiver, a luminous stream 
is sent from either the positive or the negative end 
of the pointed conductor ; the positive electricity in 
lines slightly diverging from the point into a brush of 
light, while from the negative point the stream flatly 
radiates in a star-sbaped spark about it. So it should 
have been anticipated. The molecules of atmospheric 
matter are mainly abstracted, but the ethereal atoms 
at least are there filling the air-exhausted space, and 
though they only oscillate on their centres as the 
polar action goes from one to the next, the converted 
fire-flash from the polarizing stroke is perpetuated 
from atom to atom, and the light is truly in motion. 
The positive stream is continuous, and when in it is 
also concurrent with the earth's magnetic meridian 
towards the pole, and can find little impediment from 
anything ; but the negative current meets the earth's 



SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 231 

magnetic current flatly in the face, and must scatter 
itself in star-shaped atomic polarities. 

So, again, with electric perforations of pasteboard, 
or other substance favorable for the trial; the hole 
made is not as if pierced from one side with a bodkin 
— indented at the entrance, and burred at the exit. 
The molecules have been made to vibrate and sunder 
their cohesion from within outward, and so have burred 
both sides. 

2. Thermal Electricity. — There are substances 
found, that when connected according to a certain 
arrangement, and heated in a certain way, give out 
their different currents of electrical energy. Alter- 
nate bars of bismuth and antimony, soldered together 
at their ends in divergent and convergent directions, 
respectively and successively, making a row standing 
in more or less acute angles at both ends of the bars, 
and the beginning and terminal ends, which are sin- 
gle, connected by a conductor, will constitute the 
arrangement for a thermal electric battery. When 
the bars are heated at one end through the range, an 
electric current passes from bismuth to antimony ; 
and if cooled at this end below the temperature of 
the opposite, or the opposite be more heated than 
this, then the flow reverses itself, and proceeds from 
antimony to bismuth. The bars are comparatively 
heated and cooled in their opposite ends, and the pos- 
itive flow is in the heated end, whichever it may be, 
and from bismuth to antimony bars respectively ; 



232 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

but when both ends are of like temperature, the elec- 
tric energy is quiescent. 

The polar energies in the molecules of the bars de- 
termine the whole process and results, as before in 
electricit}', by friction ; varying only as the changed 
conditions require. At the heated ends through one 
side of the range, the molecules in all the bars are 
the most fully liberated, and in each bar the molecules 
are less and less free as they approach the cooled end 
in the other side of the range, and thus the electric 
energy will be greatest in the heated, and least in the 
cooled ends. The movement must therefore be from 
the heated end of the bar to the cooled, and thence 
through the cooled end of the alternate bar to the 
heated end of the next, making the positive flow in 
that direction, and the negative action in the opposite 
direction. When the ends in the other side of the 
range are heated, conditions are reversed, and the 
positive current has a reversed direction, making also 
the negative energy the opposite in direction from its 
former course. The whole passes, in contrary direc- 
tions of positive and negative each to each, in a closed 
circuit. The particulars of the polarities are like the 
voltaic currents, and can best be noted in that strong- 
er flow. 

3. Electricity chemically excited. — Some substances 
of different force of affinities in their molecules, 
and especially such as are in different degrees oxi- 
dizable, must chemically affect each other in coming 
in contact, and may thus free their superficial mole- 



SURFACE MAGNETISM 13 ELECTRICITY. 233 

cules so as to admit of their polar arrangement, and 
thereby excite electrical action. The least oxidizable, 
and thus of greater force of affinity and stronger 
combination in itself, will ordinarily give the positive 
direction towards and through the more oxidizable 
body, and the oxidizable bodies will be specially 
minerals. The mere contact can induce but slight 
excitement, while constant contact, within a chemically 
active solvent, may much more effectually free the 
surface molecules, and greatly augment the electrical 
action. Acids, alkalis, and saline solutions may so act 
upon different metals as to excite their surface mole- 
cules in strong polar attractions and repulsions recip- 
rocally. Electricity, so excited, has circumstantial 
peculiarities, and is known as Galvanism, from the 
name of its first observer ; or more recently as 
Voltaic electricity, from a later more thorough experi- 
mentalist. 

This voltaic electricity is still the same essential 
polar energy as in the cases already contemplated; 
and the artificial arrangements for exciting it, and all 
the phenomena of its working, are determined and 
expounded by the necessary laws of mechanical force 
and motion, as contemplated in the free magnetic ac- 
tion of the molecules that lie in the surface of mate- 
rial bodies. We may carefully apply these laws, as 
we pass, to the arrangements and results, in their facts, 
under the insight of the reason, and we cannot fail to 
see their strictly determined conformity. 

When two metals, as zinc and copper, are conven- 



234 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

iently shaped and joined at their ends, they mutually 
act on each other in freeing their surface molecules 
and awakening their polar impulses. As the more 
coherent and less oxidizable, the copper sends the 
positive current through the zinc, while the negative 
current goes from the zinc through the copper. 
When these are immersed in a chemical solvent, 
the molecules are more thoroughly and extensive- 
ly loosened, and the electro-motive enei'gy is greatly 
augmented. A series of such metal plates beiug ar- 
ranged and immersed, their quantity of voltaic elec- 
tricity will be as the aggregate surfaces of all the 
plates ; and the intensity of the current will be as 
the number of pairs of metal plates, each one super- 
inducing its own current upon that of all the former. 
The poles of the pile of plates will be as the outgo- 
ing currents, the positive at the end from which the 
positive flow of energy proceeds, and the negative 
at the end from which flows the negative current. 
Attached conductors at these poles receive and per- 
petuate the flow according to their respective at- 
tachments. 

These conductors have their superficial molecules 
electrically excited, and thus the poles are carried 
to the extremities of these conductors respectively, 
and when insulated by the atmosphere, though put 
in polar directions there is no perpetuated flow, but 
if one pole of the conductors be connected with the 
earth, its electrical action will be neutralized by the 
earth's dissimilar polarity, and the electric energy 



SURFACE MAGNETISM IS ELECTRICITY. 235 

of the voltaic battery must then be wholly of the 
unlike kind of electricity. When both poles are 
connected with the earth, they must both be bal- 
anced ; and if all are insulated, and the poles be con- 
nected not with the earth, but in contact with each 
other, there will then be a closed circuit, and the 
currents will pass, each in its own direction, as con- 
stant as the continued arrangement. When the com- 
munication is with the earth, each separate stroke 
from the pile and its flow to the earth is therein 
balanced, and thus every electric shock is truly a 
new one ; but when the insulated poles are connected 
in the closed circuit, there is no balance of either 
pole, and the old current fills and repeats continual- 
ly. When the current, as in the former case, flows 
perpetually new to its balance in the earth, it must 
act upon an applied electrometer ; but in the other 
case of a closed circuit and the same old cuiTent, 
the electrometer can have no strokes from the cur- 
rent. 

This constitution of the molecular polarity deter- 
mines all the phenomena of electro-magnetism. A pole 
of a magnet so placed that its action shall recipro- 
cate with a voltaic current, all the movements must 
at once be determined by the magnetic attractions 
and repulsions upon the surface molecules, in which 
is the electric flow. The magnetic impulse and the 
electric current are but one polar energy. As the 
north magnetic pole is directed to an ascending or 
descending current, or as a south magnetic pole is 



236 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

thus directed, so the movements must be in each of 
an opposite-handed character. A fixed current may 
have movable magnetic poles, and a fixed pole mova- 
ble voltaic currents ; and the courses in each must 
be the resultants of the compound attractions and 
repulsions. 

And so we have also the like clear determination 
for all factitious magnets. As soft-iron has no co- 
ercive-force, it comes under, and falls from, the polar 
energy, as applied and removed, instantly. When, 
then, a conveniently shaped bar of soft-iron is sur- 
rounded by opposite-handed helical conductors, the 
voltaic currents passing in the opposite-handed hel- 
ices instantly put the molecules of the soft-iron bar 
into a complete magnet, with its neutral equator, its 
opposite-handed hemispheres, and its opposite polar- 
ities. Such factitious or artificial magnet, being con- 
stituted and used in connection with the telegraph 
wire of no coercive-force, all the wonderful facilities 
of telegraphic communication, will be at once deter- 
mined. The insulated soft-wire in the atmosphere, 
or by its coating at the bottom of the ocean, ljas its 
surface molecules put in vibration at every touch of 
the magnet, and fall in quiescence at every withdraw- 
ment. The connection of one pole with the earth, 
and balanced, gives to the other the working im- 
pulse, and the capacity to spell any message. 



REVOLVING FOHCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 237 



THIRD DIVISION. 

REVOLVING FORCE. 

In the constitution of the Atom, we noted a revolv- 
ing agency, which turned each component force as 
created upon its limit of antagonism, and thus made 
all to turn spirally, and in helical circuits opposite- 
handed in opposite hemispheres, till in the comple- 
tion of the atom it had become a sphere, locked 
within itself and excluding further revolution from 
its own inner counteraction. Thus far, we have 
found such a constituted atom subserving its ends 
in material nature by its magnetic and electric 
energy, and revealing the design of the Creator, 
in so constructing the atom, by the results of its 
own agency. But now we come to a much more 
extended use for such construction, in the very re- 
volving agency itself, which not only secures to the 
completed atom its bi-polar action, but ministers di- 
rectly to the fashioning of the Universe, and the de- 
termining of a Common Space and Time as Absolute 
for all worlds. 

1. A Revolving Force determines the Universe 
and its Absolute Space and Time. — That there 



238 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

may be a common space, in the experience of many, 
demands that a fixed position be taken and main- 
tained by a perpetual filling it with substantial force ; 
for if the one fixed position be once lost, the possi- 
bility of determining the one space must thereby 
be lost. And so also, that there may be a common 
time for the experience of many, there must be con- 
tinuous movement from the one fixed position ; for 
should the motion stop or be cut off from connection 
with the fixed position, the possibility of putting all 
their times into one time would be gone. But rec- 
tilineal movement from a fixed position cannot meas- 
ure itself; the movement must return into itself in 
cycles, and thereby have its own measure, and be 
also an occasion for comparatively determining all 
periods. While, thus, revolving movement will give 
determined common space and time, it will also be 
found to determine the forms and positions of ma- 
terial worlds, and the construction of the entire 
universe. 

The threefold agency in creation, as before found 
necessary to make either the Creator or his creating 
work intelligible, will here be noted as indispensable 
for comprehending the facts of nature, as far as all 
experience has yet gained them. The conscious will 
of the First Person must hold within itself the uni- 
versal Idea; the conscious will of the Second Person 
must overtly express, and hold in stable reality, the 
substantial Forces elemental for this universal Idea ; 
and the conscious will of the Third Person must turn 



REVOLVING FORCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 239 

all the elemental forces together, and hold them in 
Unity. The constituent Forces in the two varieties 
of antagonist and diremptive have all that is ele- 
mental in material and ethereal substances, as they 
have already been contemplated ; and we now seek 
to know how they may be shaped and bound in the 
complete unity of the original Idea. This is to be 
accomplished in the contemplation of a distinctive 
revolving Force overtly acting upon the material 
and ethereal forces, and so, other than in any think- 
ing-process, an actual willing energy is to deter- 
mine the universe as palpable thing transcending 
all stated thought; centrally fixed in itself, and turn- 
ing in its place, in the one common space and time 
for all rational Intelligences. 

Were we to begin with the elementary material 
and ethereal mass, and attempt to account by the 
logical Judgment for the separation into parts, and 
the sorting and putting them together in a universal 
whole, one method we might take, as some do, in ex- 
planation of the universal forming process would be, 
to assume the being of a personal Creator who had 
in his own way overtly fixed the hard material, and 
now fashions it in many worlds at his pleasure ; and 
while it is supposed that he knows all thoroughly and 
comprehensively, it must be taken that we can know 
nothing about the manner how, and are forced to con- 
tent ourselves with the study of the mere appearances. 
If, however, we should see it to be illogical to assume 
the being of a Creator and fashioner of the universe, 



240 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

and will begin as others have in facts, and not assump- 
tion, we may carefully study the appearances as 
they come in experience, noting how they stand 
together or succeed each other, and how the many 
later have come from the fewer which were more 
early, and may talk of this as " development " and 
" evolution ; " and then may imagine that if we could 
go far enough back, we might fall upon one simple 
being needing nothing further back ; and could there 
say, inasmuch as " genetic production," after the law 
of " like from like," with " occasional deviations," has 
been given in experience, this first simple being in the 
millions of ages has begotten all " varieties of species," 
and preserved all " consecutive gradations " by " nat- 
ural selection." But then, this primitive simple is the 
" absolutely unknowable," and indeterminate whether 
person or thing, and so our science and our religion 
vanish in blank " nescience." The upshot of all phi- 
losophy of experience is, — God knows, but we can- 
not know ; or, — we attain an absolutely simple, which 
we cannot say if it be God or not. 

But the case is far otherwise, when we can give 
the carefully collected facts of experience over to 
the insight of an acknowledged faculty which reads 
the certain meaning in empirical appearances, and 
knows this to be force in nature, and free personality 
as Author of force above nature. We thus intelli- 
gently enter nature in her very'essence, and in " the 
things that are made " we " clearly see the power and 
Godhead " of their Maker. We can then legitimately 



REVOLVING FORCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 241 

begin with the making, and follow the process of 
fixing the realities which determine all our observed 
appearances. We know God as independent of time, 
and that his knowledge of the universe is timeless, 
and thus, to him, the making of the atoms, and mould- 
ing them in worlds, and turning the worlds on one 
centre, were as if instantaneously accomplished ; while 
to bring the work into our finite comprehension, we 
must follow through the process, item by item, and 
see the work go on atom by atom, that at last we may 
attain to the consummation, when the working will 
of the Spirit, by a revolving force, has taken the 
atoms in their formless state and void of all inter- 
consistency, and turned them into solid worlds, and 
lit them up in the brightness by which he hath " gar- 
nished the heavens." 

With the insight of reason, then, we now go back to 
the commencingwork of creation, and there contemplate 
the interposition and results of this revolving Force 
as the direct product of the Spirit's agency. When 
the Logos, as realizing Will, made overtly stable the 
first substantial Force, the Spirit as fashioning Will, 
revolved it on its antagonizing point that the next 
created Force should occupy the exact place which 
the first had ; and creating and forming agencies so 
continued their work, till the first completed atom 
filled its place, and in its own fulness could take in 
no further forces. And now, that the creating and 
revolving processes may go on, the Spirit must move 
not merely the successive forces, but the created atom 
16 



242 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

from its place ; and doing this to the extent of half 
the diameter of the solid atom, the precise old posi- 
tion for a new created force is thereby vacated, 
wherein a new atom may begin, and here a second 
is made and fashioned as was the first atom. But 
while the second atom is being formed, it and the 
first compound their moving energies, and the result- 
ant is quite a modified movement. 

The first atom, completed and moved in a right line 
to the extent of half its diameter from its original 
position, must carry with it the excess of energy 
given on one side, and have in it the momentum of 
its own mass multiplied into this excess, thus deter- 
mining a continued rate of moving; but this con- 
tinued movement cannot be rectilineal, since the 
moving energy is at once compounded with the 
energies essentially in the newly forming atom. 
These energies of the forming hold on to those of 
the first formed atom by their mutually gravitating 
impulses, and also turn the first atom, by their own 
constituent revolution, out of its direct line of de- 
parture from its old position, and the resultant must 
be a movement of the first atom about the position 
in which is the forming second atom. This second 
being completed, and removed as was the first, gives 
the same original place for the created force which 
begins a third atom, and the second and first are 
then acted upon by the forming third atom, and the 
resultants become increasingly complicated with every 
new formed atom. Each atom and the forces of all 






REVOLVING FORCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 243 

kinds in nil the atoms come within the mechanical 
laws of composition and resultant, and while the 
whole is clear in the Absolute Reason, the composi- 
tions soon run beyond all finite insight. Nor is it 
important here that we accurately determine any- 
thing further than the general result of all the 
movements. 

All created atoms thrown out of their original place 
must at once begin revolving about that place, from 
the revolving movement of the impulses in the form- 
ing atom, together with the revolving movement given 
to all the preceding atoms. These outgoing and 
revolving atoms also act upon each other magneti- 
cally, and thus we have the central revolving force, the 
ejecting force, and the polar forces acting in composi- 
tion, the resultant of which must be a movement in 
opposite-handed helical circuits, forming a hemisphere 
of atoms on each side of an equatorial plane, and con- 
stituting thereby a revolving sphere which must also 
have its own magnetic polarities. So, in the universal 
result, there must be an augmenting mass of created 
atoms ensphering themselves in the aggregate mag- 
netically, and revolving concentrically. The aggrega- 
tion can at no time make the mass a complete sphere, 
since the atoms approach each other in the poles of 
the mass with similar polarities together, and which 
must make at the poles mutual repellencies, thus keep- 
ing the polar points of the mass open, and making the 
universal mass of atoms rather a broad spherical ring 
than a completed sphere. The revolving force from 



244 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



: 



the fashioning Will at the centre goes out with and 
works in every atom, and so reaches every portion 
of the aggregate mass ; and such revolving energy 
may be intensified, and the revolutionary velocity 
augmented at pleasure. The original Idea in the Ab- 
solute Reason is in this way brought out and attained 
in full overt expression, and what the universe comes 
to be determines what that primitive Idea was, and 
we may speculatively follow out the process, and note 
the mode of movement, which has secured for the 
constituent forces of the universe the present dis- 
tribution, arrangement, and orbital movement. 

In the fulness of material, place, and period known 
in the divine wisdom, the last antagonist atom com- 
pleted the material elements needed, and the next 
force made was diremptive, beginning the construc- 
tion of a diremptive atom. The new diremptive 
force took the same place in which all the antago- 
nist forces had been created, as the last antagonist 
atom had been moved off, and this diremptive force 
was revolved on its mid-limit of expulses, by the 
fashioning Will, and in like helical circuits as in 
the antagonist impulses, till the two hemispheres 
together filled the space and finished the first 
ethereal atom now at the centre of the aggregated 
and revolving material atoms. Thenceforward were 
made and sent off successively ethereal atoms con- 
tinuously, keeping the one central place fixed and 
filled, and the movement out from it incessantly con- 
tinuous; thus steadily determining a common uni- 






REVOLVING FORCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 245 

versal place and period in the one Space and one 
Time. 

So the ethereal atoms were multiplied and accumu- 
lated as a revolving mass within the expanding 
material envelopment, and interfusing themselves 
among the material atoms as their mass expands, 
till at length the outpressing ether and the inpress- 
ing matter equilibrate ; and in this balance of diremp- 
tion and antagonism the creative work ceases, and 
the overt real is the copy of the inner ideal. As 
two equal antagonist and diremptive atoms side by 
side would hold each other in balance, so the equal 
accumulation of each kind in this concentric enspher- 
ing will hold each in its general place respectively 
by the unbroken equilibration. The heavens and the 
earth were thus created in their elements, but with 
neither outer distinctive form nor inner consistency. 
Cohesions, chemical combinations, and crystallizations 
begin, but as yet the universal forces hold together 
as a whole by the outgoing central diremption bal- 
ancing the incoming gravity. The inner sphere is 
pure ether ; the outer envelope is chaotic matter ; but 
through the matter the ether has become interfused 
sufficiently to give occasion for universal heat- and 
light-vibrat.ions. The pure ether has perfect elasti- 
city, and thus unhindered vibratory movement ; but 
where antagonist atoms intermingle, vibratory motion 
is impeded. Mechanical law everywhere prevails 
and controls in keeping the whole steadfast, and 
the parts interacting in full correlation and equiva- 



246 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

lence. Nothing is fortuitous nor capricious, but all 
forces are within the central sway of Eternal Rea- 
son, insuring the coming of universal beauty and 
order. 

2. The Revolving Force determines the Separa- 
tion and Distribution op the universal Matter. — 
The last made diromptive force, finishing the last 
Ethereal Atom, stands with its expulses in the same 
position the first and each succeeding force has oc- 
cupied. The creating Will has rested from his work, 
but the fashioning Will still maintains his energy, and 
keeps the last force, and thus also the last atom per- 
petually revolving, and which may be of any conceiv- 
able velocity. The atoms act on each other, but as 
vapor or fluid, and not as a cohering solid. The 
central movement must thus be the most rapid and 
extending outward in broader and thus slower cir- 
cuits, making the whole movement as a vortex from 
centre to periphery. The entire spherical anuulus 
is thus in measured motion about its centre, at ratios 
proportioned to the distance of the moving atoms 
from the centre ; and as the central motion goes on, 
the periphery, though always slower than the centre, 
must still be with augmenting velocity, and both 
from the revolving impulse, and polar repulsions, 
there must follow equatorial accumulations and an 
axial revolving. In process of the persistent cen- 
tral working there must come at length the starting- 
off of large vapory masses from the periphery of the 






REVOLVING FORCES FASHION THE UNIVERSE. 247 

spherical annulus, some nearer the. poles, but most 
nearest the equator. 

Iu speaking of this revolving universal mass, which 
from the similar polarities of the atoms to each other 
at the extremities of the polar diameter must repel 
each other, and thus open and expand the polar 
regions so far as to make the whole a spherical annu- 
lus of material atoms, yet as we are to contemplate 
it, will the whole mass of matter enveloping the in- 
terior ether be so near to a thick spherical shell 
about it, that it will not lead astray to use the term 
sphere, rather than the longer but more exact ex- 
pression of spherical annulus. In the augmenting 
rapidity of revolution, and thus ejection of large 
superficial portions of this so called universal sphere, 
should the ejecting impetus be equable in every part, 
the particular ejected portion would move off on its 
separate way with uo one part moved round another, 
and thereby forming an axis of revolution within it- 
self. But such exact equality of impetus would sel- 
dom, if ever, occur. The natural process must be, 
that in the ejected portion, that part which was 
moving further and faster in the surface of the uni- 
versal sphere than the part moving shorter and 
slower a little within this surface, will on ejection run 
beyond and overlap the latter ; and further, that the 
less superficial part must leave the universal sphere 
latest, and somewhat adhering to and slackened in 
departure from the sphere, and must thereby augment 
the tendency of the former to overwrap the latter ; 



248 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



and so the ejected portion will begin its separate 
journey by turning upon itself and forming for itself 
an inward axis of rotation. The general ejecting im- 
petus tangential to the universal sphere is com- 
pounded with the direct attraction of the sphere, 
giving the resultant in an Orbit around the old 
sphere, or around any central world into which the 
parts may subsequently be distributed. The rota- 
tion of the ejected portion on its own axis will ac- 
cumulate from the polar parts about the equatorial 
region, making the new world an oblate spheroid, 
and so steadying the movements in its orbit by its 
rotation on its own axis, that this axis will be held 
parallel with itself in all places. 

Other superficial portions successively pass off in 
the same way till the material shell is exhausted in 
its pieces, and yet the whole is a universe still ; the 
distributed worlds are as stable on their old centre 
as when in mass together. The Ether fills all inter- 
spaces, and by its diremptive energy equilibrates 
all gravitating impulses, while the superintending 
hand of Absolute wisdom and power is on the centre, 
managing every movement. 



; 



3. Single and Compound Worlds. — The masses 
into which the universal sphere breaks up will at 
the first be detached, fleecy forms, with no similarity 
or regularity of outline, as masses of cloud break 
up and drift apart one from another. Slowly they 
gather into their more condensed and rounded 



SINGLE AND COMPOUND WORLDS. 249 

shape, as their gravitating and rotating forces fash- 
ion them. 

There could hardly be such a conjunction of dis- 
tinguishable antagonist, diremptive, and revolving 
forces working at the separating and ejected world, 
as to send it off with an equal and direct impulse in 
every part; nor can we see a reason why the Cre- 
ator's hand should seek so to adjust the forces ; but 
should such equable impetus strike off a superficial 
mass, and leave it to its own action, it would pass 
on its solitary way, a single world with no attend- 
ant. We cannot say such worlds are not; we can 
only say that the forces, in their determinate action, 
give no occasion to anticipate that such will some- 
where be constituted. 

But should some masses be so unequal in impulse 
and movement of parts as to break asunder on their 
separation from the great sphere, or should two or 
three separate masses move off from the surface 
nearly at once, their imparted motion and their mu- 
tual attractions might very well determine for them, 
at the start, a tendency to arrange themselves about 
some common centre of gravity and of revolution, 
while the whole combination would have its grand 
movement about the great sphere, and each its dis- 
tinct path about the common centre. Such may be 
binary or ternary worlds, or perhaps so combine as 
to be quaternary, and all will have their determinate 
laws, and harmonious and safe movements. As 
viewed from other worlds, they will stand to the 



250 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



spectator in the direction of their own common oi'bi- 
tal plane, and there appear alternately to approach 
and then recede from each other ; or as perpendic- 
ular to their orbital plane, when their full revolutions 
will have no change of distance, respectively, from 
each other ; or they may stand at any intervening 
inclination of their plane, and appear with corre- 
sponding obliquities of revolution. 

Viewed from our terrestrial stand-point, the stars 
are of different magnitudes, and the numbers greater 
as the magnitudes diminish. If it be taken for a 
probable fact that the smaller are proportionally more 
distant, two stars of unequal magnitudes may readily 
appear as if joined in system, and constituting a com- 
pound world. But when lying in nearly the same 
line of vision, while one may be at a great remove 
beyond the other, they are only apparent double- 
stars, and as two bodies they have no common con- 
nection. More than six thousand double-stars have 
been noticed, taken in both hemispheres, which have 
no more probable relation than other stars, except as 
it happens that they lie to us nearly in the same line 
of vision. But all cases of double-stars are not mere- 
ly so in optical appearance. Taking stars to the 
seventh magnitude, and the chance that they should 
appear within 4" of each other, and so be binary, it 
has been computed would be but 1 to 9870, and that 
they should appear ternary, but as 1 to 173524 ; and 
yet of ternary combination there have been observed 
at least three, and of binary more than six hundred. 



SYSTEMS OF WORLDS. 251 

There is, however, more direct evidence of com- 
pound worlds, than that they appear beyond their 
proper number from chances. There are more than 
six hundred and fifty that have been noticed as hav- 
ing relative motions, and not by parallax from our 
change of position ; and of these, sixteen, at least, 
have had their orbits determined, and some have 
completed more than one revolution since their dis- 
covery. The periodical times of these physically 
double-stars differ from thirty to six hundred and 
thirty years. Their distance and their non-polarized 
light determine them to be suns shining by their own 
light, and not planetary bodies. Whether such com- 
pound worlds have their planetary accompaniments 
can be known by no present methods of observation; 
all we can say is, they have communion each with 
each in their revolutions. 

4. Systems op Worlds. — A large nebulous mass 
thrown off from the universal sphere must soon as- 
sume a spherical form in its rotatory movement, and 
begin to acquire consistency from its gravitation and 
incipient cohesion. The condensation will be com- 
paratively great at the centre ; and if the surface be 
of a comparative levity proportioned to its distance, 
the result, in many cases, will be that the superficial 
gravity will be less than the force of revolution, when 
the newly-formed sphere will give off a portion of its 
equatorial surface, and this ejected portion will also 
turn on an axis of its own, and revolve about its 



252 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

primary, and be carried by the primary around the 
original centre. This primary becomes a Sun to its 
smaller globe, and that a planet revolving around it. 

The rotation of a planet on its own axis must be in 
the direction of that of the primal sun, and an exact 
force of revolution and balance of gravity would put 
the planet's equator in the plane of its orbit, and this 
orbit would also be in the plane of the sun's equator. 
Disturbing forces must be anticipated as sure to in- 
terrupt such regularity. The unequal affinities, and 
cohesions, and gravities will induce unequal accumu- 
lations about the sun's equator, and the planets will 
be sent off in directions intersecting its plane ; and 
if this had been at a considerable angle, when the 
sun's revolutions should have brought up to its 
equator the superficial matter for another planet, 
the excess from one hemisphere before will be prob- 
ably balanced by a corresponding excess from the 
other now, and this planet must thus go off at an 
angle inclined to the plane of the sun's equator on 
the opposite side. Such oscillation from side to 
side, in planetary inclinations of orbit, would be a 
priori probable, and also that their axes should be 
in lines variously inclined to each other. Should a 
planetary axis of revolution be so formed, by un- 
equal force of ejectment on one side of its centre, 
or the unequal quantity of matter and its gravity 
on one side, as to carry its inclination more than 90° 
from the normal plane, in such case its rotation on 



SYSTEMS OF WORLDS. 253 

its axis would be reversed, and the movement be 
retrograde. 

This rotating planet, again, carries its superficial 
portions to its equatorial region, making the planet 
oblate ; and in some cases of a planet the force of 
revolution may be sufficient to eject portions of its 
surface at the equator once, or repeatedly, and the 
planet thus have one satellite or more which it 
carries with it about the sun. The planets and 
their satellites condense gradually to comparatively 
small dimensions compared with their first sizes, but 
their orbits must be of much the same diameter from 
the first. It may sometimes be, that the conditions 
shall accumulate so homogeneous and equable equa- 
torial surface about the planet, and the revolving 
force be so assisted by satellite attractions, that the 
matter shall not separate itself, but be raised from 
the body of the planet, which also condenses be- 
neath, and this equatorial portion become a ring 
entirely about the planet. While it retains its va- 
porous or fluid state, it may revolve about the 
planet, and adjust itself to any unequal attractions ; 
but should it become cohesive and unyielding, a 
violent disturbing force must rupture it, or throw 
down one part of it upon the body of the planet. 

At any subsequent times, the then present state 
of the worlds must indicate what has been their 
cosmological history. As we now look on, we may 
read that the sun has passed from its superficial 
accumulation about the great sphere, and at the 



254 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



time of its ejection was a nebulous mass that filled 
the whole place within the orbit of its outside planet, 
and its periodic time of rotation on its axis then was 
the periodic time of this farthest planet in its orbital 
revolution. The planetary bodies have since been 
successively thrown off in their vaporous or fluid 
state, and they have thrown off their satellites, and 
all have condensed and settled into their present 
positions, from volumes of matter that was filling 
the whole place within their orbits, and revolving 
on their own axes at the periodic times of these 
present worlds in their orbits, and which periodic 
times these bodies have from the first observed. 

An older history is still further back, when the 
suns and systems were a contiguous collection of 
atoms filling all the place within the grand range 
of the furthest star, and when the ether, that is now 
diffused through all the interstellary spaces as the 
medium for light- and heat-vibrations, was then an 
inner sphere beneath the superincumbent shell of 
universal matter, expanding and revolving this shell 
till by installments it became disrupted and thrown 
into the suns and systems which we call fixed stars, 
because their distance forbids that we should find 
for them either apparent size or motion. The uni- 
versal law of mechanics was inherent in these forces 
at their first constitution, and all the resultant facts 
of planetary systems have been determined by it. 
The necessary laws of gravity and universal motion 
contain within them Kepler's laws of planetary 



REVOLVING FORCE SOLVES INEXPLICABLE FACTS. 255 

revolution, and all go back to the Absolute thought 
and will which fixed the first simple impulses in 
their antagonism, and set them in revolving move- 
ment on their central limit by the repetitions of sim- 
ilar creations. 

5. The Revolving Force has determined several 
Phenomena otherwise inexplicable. — The general 
results in these cases should so be as before given, 
while inequalities and varieties are such as different 
conditions might well be supposed to have occasioned, 
and sometimes the modifying conditions are quite 
patent. These phenomena occur in our own system, 
and may be taken as indices of similar phenomena in 
other systems. 

1. Gradations in planetary density. Varied den- 
sities, and of wholly irregular measures, would result 
from planetary formations by independent Causes ; 
but if they have been successively thrown off from 
the same solar mass, they must gradually have a 
general increase of density from the further or out- 
side planets. And such is the general fact, with 
irregularities slightly occurring, that might readily 
be expected from peculiar circumstances slightly 
modifying the condensations. The most noticeable 
is the specific gravity of the sun itself, which is 
but about the density of Jupiter, when as central 
it should be denser than any planet. The immense 
photosphere of imponderable flame greatly enlarging 
the sun's apparent volume, and which, as the divisor 



256 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

of the mass in attaining density will give too small a 
quotient, is a sufficient explanation. 

2. Gradation of interplanetary spaces. A regular 
gradation of spaces between the planets would not 
happen from independent causes of separation ; but 
thrown off from one solar body successively as that 
body successively diminished, the spaces between 
would gradually diminish from the outer inward. 
The facts are, that the interplanetary spaces are a 
near approach to a duplicate ratio on each remove 
from the inner planet. 

3. Inclination of planetary orbits. If the planets 
were thrown from the solar sphere by a revolving force, 
we should expect a general conformity of orbit to the 
plane of the solar equator, with varieties occasioned 
by circumstantial unequal accumulations about the 
equatorial region before the planetary ejection. If 
we suppose the plane of the sun's equator to have 
been between the orbits of Neptune and Uranus 
when they successively were thrown off, we shall 
have balancing alternations from side to side of from 
half a degree to three and a half, till we come to 
Mercury, whose ejection was on an advance, and not 
return swing, and then we have the sun's present 
equator still a trifle in advance of the orbit of 
Mercury. Nothing would seem to account for such 
near conformity of orbits so well as revolving pro- 
jections from the solar sphere. 

4. Periodic times and heliocentric movement. On 
the supposition of successive ejections from the sun's 



REVOLVING FORCE SOLVES INEXPLICABLE FACTS. 257 

body, the periodic times of revolution by the planets 
should bear a general proportion to their distance 
from the centre ; and so also with their heliocentric 
motions, the greater periodic time and the less helio- 
centric movement should be in the further planet. And 
these gradations are, in fact, so in accordance with re- 
volving-force requisition that no other cause need be 
sought in explanation. And with the sun's present 
rate of revolution and heliocentric motion in the equa- 
torial periphery, were another planet now to be 
thrown off inside of Mercury, there would be corre- 
sponding shortened revolution and accelerated move- 
ment. 

5. Tlie orbits of the satellites should present greater 
irregularities than those of the planets. Exactly bal- 
anced material would give exact motion, and throw all 
orbits in the plane of the sun's equator. But the 
planets should have been anticipated to be thrown 
off as excess of accumulation from side to side of the 
solar equator, and so with some but not large inequal- 
ities in the inclinations of their orbits. Then their 
own unbalanced matter at first about their centres 
will more widely derange the inclinations of their re- 
spective axes, and thus furnish occasion for quite 
wide varieties in the movements of the satellites they 
shall eject in their own revolutions. Should such oc- 
casions of disparity conspire, in a particular case, to 
make the inclination of the satellite orbits more than 
90° from a normal plane, it would reverse the order 
17 



258 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



of their revolution, and make the satellite-movements 
to be retrograde. 

Taking the earth's orbit as in the normal plane, and 
looking out from the sun's centre, and then taking the 
right hand to be our northern hemisphere, and the 
eye directly in the plane looking westward, as we 
have our face, we shall there view the revolutions of 
the system passing on from westward to eastward, 
and such as are in and parallel with the ecliptic will 
move squarely direct, and such as may vary from the 
plang, inclined on either hand, will ; move obliquely 
direct according to the degree of inclination, and 
when such inclination shall pass beyond a perpendicu- 
lar to the plane, the movement of the body in such 
orbit will be reversed, and become obliquely retro- 
grade. 

The earth is the first from the sun among the plan- 
ets having a satellite, and the moon's orbit has an in- 
clination of about 5° to the ecliptic, and is thus direct 
with little pbliquity ; while the equatorial plane of 
the earth inclines to the ecliptic about 23^-°, with a 
direct motion indeed on its own axis, but largely 
oblique. 

Jupiter is the next with satellites, of which there 
are four, nearly in the same plane, and this common 
plane of the satellites also nearly in the same plane 
as the planet's equator and orbit, and all less than 1|° 
inclined to the ecliptic ; and thus all the movements of 
Jupiter and his satellites are very nearly squarely 
direct. 






REVOLVING FORCE SOLVES INEXPLICABLE PACTS. 259 

Saturn is next, with eight satellites and a ring, all 
moving nearly in the same plane, except the exterior 
satellite, which varies from the common plane about 
12°, and this common plane is about 28° inclined to 
the ecliptic; and so the Saturnian movements are all 
direct, though largely oblique. 

We then have Uranus, known to have four satel- 
lites with orbits nearly in a common plane, and which 
stands inclined to the ecliptic about 69° ; and yet the 
Uranian satellites are retrograde in their revolutions 
though quite considerably within 90° inclination to 
the ecliptic. Here is an anomaly, long noticed and 
hitherto inexplicable. It would still remain inexplica- 
ble if we were obliged to take the pole of the Ura- 
nian axis, which is at the right of the ecliptic, as the 
end of the axis which was thrown up from its normal 
position perpendicular to the ecliptic, on the same 
side, in the forming and rotating process ; since, as so 
affording less than 90° inclination, there could not be 
a reversal of its movement. But, if this right hand 
pole were advanced to its present position, from its 
normal perpendicular position on the left hand, then 
would the inclination pass beyond 90° to about 101°, 
and make the movement very decidedly retrograde. 
Such is to be the contemplation, if we consider the 
axis of the plane of the satellite-revolution to be also 
the axis of the planet; but as such Uranian axis is 
not known, and which perhaps may be as oblique as 
the earth's axis to that of the moon's orbital plane, or 
about 181°, this would leave the rotation of Saturn 



260 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

direct on its own axis, while its satellites have gone 
to a degree of inclination reversing their movement. 

6. Planetoids and Saturnian ring. The first dis- 
covery of a Planetoid was on the first day of the year 
1801, and in 1870 there had been found one hundred 
and ten planetoids. They are all within the appropriate 
region between Mars and Jupiter for a siDgle planet, 
and have general conformity and characteristics with 
the planets, differing most in diminutive volume, and 
varied ellipticity and inclination of their orbits. The 
largest is about five hundred miles in diameter, and 
the smallest may be no more than fifty miles diameter ; 
the aggregate volume of all is equal only to a small 
planet. Their movements are direct, but their diver- 
sity from the planets and among themselves in incli- 
nation and eccentricity of orbits, longitude of ascend- 
ing node, and longitude of perihelion, have been inex- 
plicable. The determinations of a revolving force 
consistently account for all these peculiarities. 

When the great planet Jupiter, whose mass is more 
than three hundred and thirty-eight times that of the 
earth, had been just separated from the solar sphere, 
its attraction of the portion of the sphere close be- 
neath must have given to the equatorial accumulations 
upon it a very peculiar state and position for consti- 
tuting the next planet, and specially fitted for forming 
the planetoids. As the solar sphere revolved on its 
axis under so large an attracting body, its equatorial 
gathering must have been much hastened, and this 
protuberance must have been much disturbed and 



REVOLVING FORCE SOLVES INEXPLICABLE FACTS. 261 

drawn away from an equable diffusion about the whole 
equatorial part to a rising tide following along under 
the moving planet. This equatorial accumulation 
could not thus be retained till it should ultimately be 
sent off in a large mass ; but on the collection becom- 
ing somewhat considerable, and rising up directly be- 
neath the large planet Jupiter, the revolving force 
must have seized its crest and taken off the tide-wave, 
so to speak, in detached portions. The first planetoid 
was thus prematurely formed, and then followed oth- 
ers in successive installments, till the least distant 
from the sun was taken in the same way, and sent 
revolving round it at quite a delayed period, and at 
last the balancing relief was attained, as if all had 
been expelled in one planet. The ordinary accumu- 
lations afterwards went on, with a density too great 
and an attraction too small, that they should thence- 
forth be taken off piecemeal; and Mars came next — a 
regular but smaller planet. 

This tide-crest under Jupiter must have been per- 
petually passing round the whole equatorial circle of 
the solar sphere, and thus determining the wide dif- 
ferences respectively of longitude of perihelion and 
longitude of ascending node ; and the unequal attrac- 
tions of Jupiter, as in his revolutions he passed on 
opposite sides of the solar equator, must have occa- 
sioned wide disparities in orbital inclinations. With 
such a planet as Jupiter, his next inferior planet could 
not have been matured and thrown off in one projec- 
tion ; nor, on the other hand, could the peculiar plan- 



262 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

etoid formations have taken place without just such 
preponderances of planetary attractions and tidal 
elevations. The planetoids must have occurred be- 
tween Jupiter and Mars, and could have been consti- 
tuted between no other planets of the system. 

The rings of Saturn are the opposites of the plan- 
etoids, and are an unbroken satellite, inasmuch as they 
are a separation from the planet on all sides. Saturn 
is the least dense of all the planets, and has sent off 
from his own body a larger proportion of equatorial 
accumulations than any other. He has eight satel- 
lites, and a ring in the equatorial plane about the 
planet and between its own body and the orbit of the 
inferior satellite. This ring has two main divisions 
concentrically by a comparatively narrow space be- 
tween them, and a transparent portion of the inner 
ring stretches downward as a veil towards the surface 
of the planet. The exterior ring is about ten thou- 
sand five hundred miles in depth, and the interior is 
more than seventeen thousand miles deep, and their 
dividing space is about eighteen hundred miles, and 
exclusive of the pending veil, the lower edge of the 
interior ring is about nineteen thousand miles above 
the surface of the planet. These main rings have 
also apparent slight subdivisions. The edge of the 
ring in direct line of vision is barely perceptible, and 
cannot be more than fifty miles in thickness. The 
ring is together slightly eccentric, and thus balances 
itself on a moving point about the centre of Saturn, 
and must be a vapor or a fluid, or, as some deem, an 






REVOLVING FORCE SOLVES INEXPLICABLE FACTS. 2G3 

accumulation of separate granular bodies. , Such a 
phenomenon nowhere else in the heavens presents 
itself. 

But the peculiar conditions readily supposable 
explain why there was this flat ring rather than a 
spherical satellite. If the eight satellites of Saturn 
were, at a favorable state of the equatorial accumu- 
lation, pie'.ty evenly distributed, in their respective 
orbits, about the body of the planet, their attraction 
in composition with the even revolving-force all 
through the equatorial surface, instead of throwing 
the whole out and otf at one place, would raise the 
whole in all places, and permit the body of Saturn to 
condense and revolve on its axis beneath the ring 
thus formed, while the ring would revolve in its 
own place with the force it had when on the body, 
and has retained since its separation. Such a re- 
volving ring must throw its vaporous or fluid matter 
into a thin plane, and might very probably be ex- 
pected to make a permanent separation between a 
denser part thrown furthest and highest, and a 
lighter part with a thin veil hanging from it below, 
and thus by its own action to work itself into what 
is its present shape and position. So long as the 
condensation is not a solid, it may have its revolv- 
ing flow unbroken, and accommodate itself to any 
limited disturbing attractions. Nothing could deter- 
mine such a ring but such equable attraction and 
force of revolution, and with such its formation was 
a necessary result. No other planet has the rarity 



264 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



of matter, and the number of satellites, to permit 
that it encircle itself with such a revolving ring, 
anywhere else in the system. 

7. The same matter is co-extensive with the universe. 
It has been found that a sodium flame gives a 
yellow band across the spectrum, at the same rela- 
tive place in it as a dark line is given in the solar 
spectrum, and which, from special observations made 
by him in obtaining this and other relative spectral 
lines, has been known as the line of Fraunhofer. 
Further experiment reveals, that an intense white 
light put behind the yellow sodium-flame gives a 
spectrum with a dark band in the place of the yel- 
low, the sodium yellow having absorbed the yel- 
low that was blended in the white light put behind 
it. The general conclusion is, " A flame absorbs 
rays of the same refrangibility as those which itself 
emits." 

Applying this generalization to particular flames 
determines particular substances. The incandescent 
body of the sun, with its yellow vaporous flame be- 
fore it, gives the dark Fraunhofer line in the solar 
spectrum just where it is by the sodium-blaze with 
the white light behind, and thus evincing' the pres- 
ence of sodium in the substance of the solar body. 
Appropriating the different Fraunhofer lines in the 
solar spectrum, with those of different substances in 
the lines made by their respective flames in their 
particular spectrum, each with each, it has been con- 
cluded that the substance of the sun has also the 



COMETS COME INTO THE SYSTEM. 265 

metals calcium, magnesium, barium, iron, nickel, cop- 
per, cliromium, and zinc added to the sodium first 
found ; and similar experiments with the fixed stars 
find a portion of the same substances entering into 
their composition. Such experiments find, what the 
formation of the systems by revolving forces deter- 
mines must be, the same matter everywhere univer- 
sally diffused. A careful examination of the sun's 
spots determines a luminous atmosphere about the 
body of the sun, of much more intense brightness than 
the body itself; it is not thus the sun's substance 
that is white beneath the outer flame, but the in- 
tenser lower portion of the photosphere has its rays 
stricken down in passing through the colored flame 
above, which absorbs as it emits, and determines the 
Fraunhofer lines, and gives the substance of the 
flame, and not that of the sun. 

This photosphere is gaseous, inasmuch as its light 
has no polarization ; and whether induced by mete- 
oric matter impinging by gra»vity upon the sun, or 
other cause, the same efficiency for perpetual light- 
arid heat-vibrations will apply to all centres of sys- 
tems. 

6. Comets come into the System from without. 
— Matter both atomic and molecular will still be 
diffused through the interstellary spaces when the 
systems have been constituted by the central revolv- 
ing force. It will ordinarily be too rare to interrupt 
and reflect the light-vibrations, but in some collected 



266 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATTON. 

masses it may be expected to have consistency suffi- 
cient to retain form, and be made luminous. As 
Separate from the systems it may be known as mete- 
oric matter, and must move in the general revolution 
of the central force, and portions of it must also feel 
and obey the interactions of stellar attraction, and 
fall within the eddies and cross-tides which must be 
induced' between the moving forces. Some portions 
may move wholly outside of any system, and remain 
unknown to observers within ; others may come in 
and pass out of a system ; and a few of the many may 
be caught and retained permanently by the attrac- 
tions of the system. Such meteoric matter appear- 
ing within a system, of considerable volume and de- 
terminable movement, is known as a Comet, whether 
once passing through and off, or revolving statedly 
within it. Those of the former may pass in hyper- 
bolic or parabolic curves ; the latter Avill have full 
orbits more or less elliptical ; and the movements of 
either may be direct or retrograde, inasmuch as they 
may enter the system from any direction. 

The facts as observed correspond with such specu- 
lative liabilities. They are so rare in consistency, 
that a fixed star before which the comet has moved 
shines through the most central part of it with undi- 
minished lustre, and though the motion of the planets 
is not appreciably obstructed by the ethereal media, 
that of the comets has a noticeable retardation. 
Some have come into the system, and made more 
than one regular revolution in it, and then have been 



COMETS COME INTO THE SYSTEM. 267 

lost to any further observation ; and another lias part- 
ed into two within full observation, and the two for 
months visibly receded from each other, and on their 
periodic return both again appeared, but they were 
a million and an half miles asunder. Of two hundred 
comets whose elements were determined, the largest 
portion were found to be parabolic', and nearly equal 
in direct and retrograde movements, while forty of the 
number only were of elliptical orbits. Of these forty 
revolving within the system, thirteen have their mean 
distances within the orbit of Saturn, six within the orbit 
of Uranus, and twenty-one beyond any known planet. 
The least of these cometary orbits whose mean dis- 
tances are beyond Neptune is thirty-three times 
larger than that of the earth, and the greatest is two 
thousand one hundred and thirty-eight times larger 
than the earth's orbit. Of the thirteen within Saturn 
there is an approach to planetary conformity in inclina- 
tion and eccentricity, and they are all alike in direct 
movement. Of the six within Uranus, there is great 
diversity of inclination from 18° nearly to a perpen- 
dicular, greatly augmented eccentricity, and one of 
them has retrograde movement. Of the twenty-one 
beyond Neptune there are similar varieties of inclina- 
tion, great eccentricity making the opposite sides of 
the orbit for a long distance nearly parallel, and as 
nearly equally divided as possible in movement, hav- 
ing ten direct and eleven retrograde. 

While these diversities forbid the supposition that 
the comets have been thrown from a common central 



268 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

source with the planets, those within the system may 
find the determinations of conformity to planetary 
movement from forces acting upon them since their 
introduction. The less velocity, which permitted 
them on entering to be retained, would secure di- 
minished eccentricity generally proportioned to their 
confinement within the system ; but especially the 
orbital inclinations, and the direct and retrograde 
movements, may be referred for their classified dif- 
ferences to forces acting upon the comets within the 
system, but which do not reach them when beyond 
the system. Thus all the comets, whose mean dis- 
tance is within the orbit of Saturn, must perpetually 
move within the sphere of Saturn's attraction, added 
to the aggregate attraction of all the planets within 
Saturn's orbit. Let, then, a comet commence its 
revolution at any extreme degree of inclination, and 
the aggregate attractions in the plane of the comet's 
orbit will have their excess on one side of it, and 
draw the comet in its course to that side ; and such 
conspiring attractions must bring the plane of the 
comet's orbit in nearer conformity to the mean 
plane of the planetary orbits ; hence the inclinations 
of orbit with this class of comets are, with one lit- 
tle augmented exception, less than the most inclined 
orbit of the planetoids. Such gradually changing orbit 
must at length find its place of general equilibrium 
from one perihelion passage to another, and hence- 
forth oscillate back and forth as any excesses or 
deficiencies in particular revolutions may induce, and 



A ' 



COMETS COME INTO THE SYSTEM. 269 

each comet in its orbit will find its own balance in its 
own aggregate attractions. Those revolving beyond 
the range of such attractions will keep their original 
orbital places. 

And in reference to direct and retrograde move- 
ment, a comet moving concurrently with the planets 
will have more attraction from them in its revolution 
than when more quickly passing them in occurrent 
movement. A retrograde movement will have its 
concurrence with the planets in that part of its orbit 
which is most remote from them while they are in 
the most remote part of their orbits, and occurrent 
with the planets in that part of its orbit which is 
nearest to them while they are in the nearest part of 
their orbits. The retrograde comet must thus be 
drawn in opposite directions in the opposite portions 
of its orbit, and thus augmenting its longitude with 
every revolution, till it shall reach its culmination, and 
turn from its westing to its easting movement, and 
which will be its change from retrograde to direct 
movement. Afterwards the comet and planet move 
concurrent in the parts of their orbits nearest each 
other, and all further change of longitude ceases, 
except as occasional modifications occur in particular 
revolutions back and forward. Hence all comets 
within the system are now direct, except Halley's 
comet, and which may be with every revolution 
approaching its climacteric from a westward to an 
eastward movement. 



270 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



7. Geological Formations. — Geology, as the name 
imports, is the science of the internal constitution of 
the earth. We can know little of the inner con- 
struction of any of the worlds of our system except 
that of the earth. Yet what we know of our world 
may be applied by analogy to the other worlds of the 
solar system, and our system may also be taken 
as analogous to all systems of worlds. But even of 
our earth, almost its whole interior is hidden from 
observation, and by no human process as yet has 
more than eight or ten miles deep of some portions 
of its superficial construction been examined. What 
we do know is, however, directly in accordance with 
the determinations of our speculative philosophy, in 
its revolving force for the world-formations. 

The immediate leading facts relative to this superfi- 
cial crust of the earth are, that it has extensively and 
repeatedly been broken through and turned up by 
internal forces, and that large portions of the frac- 
tured strata have been set edgewise to the surface, 
dipping less or more towards the horizon ; and such 
upturned edges disclose the contents of the several 
strata and the order of their superposition in their 
previous horizontal state, and thus by analogy dis- 
closing the state of the earth's crust which has had 
no upheaval. 

As found underlying the other strata is the Granite 
of an unknown thickness, and which unmistakably 
evinces the earlier and wide action of intense heat 
from its sub-crystallized composition in its cooled and 



GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 271 

solid form. Above the granite is the Gneiss, of great 
thickness, and on this rests the stratum of Mica schist 
many thousand feet in its depth. All these compose 
what has been known as the Cumbrian Formation, 
and in which nothing but the mechanical forces of 
inorganic matter appear. 

The Cambrian system of old Slate stone, a mile in 
thickness through all its stratifications, overlies the 
Cumbrian ; and here begin the indices that atmospheric 
air and water were contemporaneous with their forma- 
tion, and that with the earliest fossil remains they 
must have been deposited beneath the water on the 
cooled crust above the fire. Then comes the Silu- 
rian system, of a mile and an half in its depth, with 
hundreds of extinct species of fossil organizations. 
Above is the Secondary Formation, with its old red 
sandstone, made up of older rocks fractured and dis- 
integrated, and anew deposited, of a depth of many 
thousand feet, with many old fossil remains ; and on 
which again are interposed layers of limestone and 
coal formation, the new red sandstone, the oolite, 
and chalk beds ; all filling a space several miles deep. 
Higher still towards the surface is the Tertiary For- 
mation, of lime, and clay, and sand, on which are 
diluvial deposits ; when we come to the comparatively 
recent period of the oldest satisfactory traces of man 
on the earth, and the opening of human history. All 
this is naturally consequential upon the rolling fire- 
mist sent off by the solar revolving forces, and left to 
ensphere itself, and cool down, and condense a crust 



272 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



upon the shut-in fires beneath. The silicious mass of 
granite, and gneiss, and mica schist takes its ordered 
position, and thereby is in preparation for collecting 
vapors, and an atmosphere, and condensed water ; and 
then is introduced the life-power, building up its 
organisms of plants and animals through their suc- 
cessive and rising species. 

But still below all this, chemical examination carries 
our knowledge deeper, and yet perfectly in accordance 
with, and confirmatory of, our speculative knowledge, 
from revolving forces. The granites and porphyrites 
which underlie the stratified and fossiliferous rocks 
are largely composed of silica, and are thence termed 
silicious rocks, and have a specific gravity of 2.4. 
Another class of rocks, as 4:he trap and basalt, have 
much less silica, and more lime and iron, and whose 
specific gravity is 2.72 — a ratio to the other greater 
than that between water and oil, and which have been 
forced through and lie in position upon the older 
formed silicious and sedimentary strata. The silicious 
cooled first, and then the other termed basic rocks, as 
in their fluid state lying lower, have been since pressed 
through the fractures, and cooled upon the surfaces 
and in the crevices of the lighter and originally supe- 
rior material. This latter kind of basic rock is very 
sparsely found in positions upon the silicious and 
primitive rocks, but appears in increased frequency 
among the fossiliferous rocks of the palaeozoic era, 
and is the product mainly of all modern volcanoes, 
while the silicious rocks were more common from old 



GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 273 

subterranean eruptions, but are now very rarely 
found among modern volcanic lavas. This would 
seem to indicate that the granitic matter has become 
fixed, and that present volcanic eruptions throw out 
the heavier matter still melted in the lower posi- 
tions. The whole mass of the earth is 5.5 of specific 
gravity, and as so much of water and silicious rock that 
is lighter occupies the superficial portion, the interior 
must be mainly of the heavier bases and metals ran- 
ging from 6.0 and upwards ; and thus is evinced that 
the heavy metals, as arsenic, antimony, copper, and 
gold, however located in the rocky veins or mines, 
were originally quite below all granitic matter, and 
may most probably have been stiblimed from the 
interior as chemical salts. 

So manifestly with our earth. A solid crust cooled 
first, which had its fractures, disintegrations, and 
decompositions ; then arose vapors, waters, and an 
atmosphere ; then the detritus of primitive rock 
would be deposited in successive layers ; organized 
bodies appeared, and as life departed they took their 
fossil state amid the depositions ; and frequent up- 
heavals, and successive submersions, and occasional 
eruptions have given to the earth's superficial portion 
just what the geologist now witnesses. And so far as 
observation reaches, we have sphericity and equa- 
torial protuberance in other planets, an atmosphere 
with its twilight in Mercury and Venus, and not only 
air, but clouds and polar snows, in Mars, and a dense 
and little elevated atmosphere in Jupiter, and bare 
18 



274 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

mountains with their shadows and volcanic craters 
in the Moon. The revolving forces have determined 
these geological phenomena. 

8. From Facts found tn the Universal Stellar 
Distribution, we determine our Terrestrial Rel- 
ative Position. — The general configuration which 
the completed speculation assigns to the material 
Universe is a broad, spherical Annulus of distinct 
stars, as the central suns of separate systems, over- 
arching on all sides except at the polar extremities, an 
inner sphere of pure ether, which is composed of 
perfectly elastic diremptive Atoms, all revolving on 
one fixed point at the creating source from which all 
originated. The stellar worlds fill the place of a 
spherical Annulus, and not a complete globe, both 
because the mass of material atoms, which have been 
distributed in them, was open at the polar region 
from their reciprocal magnetic repulsions, and be- 
cause the revolving force which distributed them 
could detach them from the mass at its surface only 
as it gained an augmentation of impetus on its ap- 
proach towards the equatorial plane. All along the 
universal Axis there is a vacuum of stellar worlds, 
thinly distributed some way back from the poles, and 
thickly studded through the equatorial region. At 
the equatorial mid-plane, the unequal accumulations 
of the original mass gave an excess of impetus from 
side to side which threw off the stars obliquely, this 
side and that, and so in the mid-plane the stars are 



RELATIVE POSITION OP OUR SYSTEM. 275 

sparse and unequally arranged, but greatly though 
irregularly accumulated in ranks each side the mid- 
plane. Clusters were occasionally sent off that fill 
patches in the heavens, and nebulous portions floated 
away at different places, presenting different forms 
as they stand in their respective lines of vision. The 
universe may be as large, and its suns as distant from 
each other, as the Maker wills, but it is finite in space 
and time ; it had its origin, and perpetually has a 
balancing centre and a balanced periphery. The 
central ether presses out, and the gravitating matter 
presses in, and though the ethereal atoms diffuse 
themselves everywhere through the stellar spaces, 
yet is the ether so balanced by the gravitating mat- 
ter, that the latter does not permit the former to go 
off and exhaust itself in the matterless void, nor does 
the former permit the latter to aggregate within the 
central ethereal sphere, though the material annulus 
gravitates towards the ethereal centre, in all its parts, 
as if the matter itself reached and filled the whole in- 
terior sphere. 

This equatorial belt of stars, standing in two irreg- 
ular ranks on each side the equatorial plane, may be 
known as the Galaxy. A line through its centre, per- 
pendicular to the plane of the belt, may be known as 
the galactic Axis ; and the extremities of the axis 
may be known as the galactic Poles. Standing at 
the centre of the Universe, the galaxy would be a 
great circle equally dividing the heavens ; and the 
galactic poles would be in opposite regions of the 






276 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



heavens, where there were, in both, the entire ab- 
sence of stars ; and from a few degrees back of both 
poles, the stars would thinly appear and increase in 
density greatly and continually up to the equatorial 
belt. But such central vision is for no material or- 
gan, and the only stand-point for sensible observation 
is on some world among the material systems. The 
starry heavens must have their peculiar phase from 
each separate world, and from distant worlds their 
particular phases must greatly differ from each 
other ; and taking the universe as we have specu- 
latively contemplated it, the astronomical phenomena 
to our vision must determine for us our terrestial 
stand-point, and fix the position of our solar system 
relatively to the other Suns of the universe. 

Among these phenomena, a galactic fact first ap- 
plicable for this purpose is, that the galaxy to us is 
not exactly a great celestial circle, but it divides 
the heavens unequally, about proportional as eight 
to nine. Our point of observation, then, must be out 
from the centre, and within the larger portion, so far 
as to foreshorten the galactic circle in the ratio of 
one out of nine. 

A second fact is, the gauges made of the stars, in 
equal Zones each side the circle, increase in about 
equal ratios up towards the circle, but in each gauge 
invariably the ' number is some larger on one side 
than on the other. Our system is, thus, out of the 
galactic equatorial plane, and within that area where 
the stars in the gauges are the smaller number. 






RELATIVE POSITION OP OUR SYSTEM. 277 

A third fact is, that stars of different magnitudes 
increase in number in the gauges very dispropor- 
tionately. Stars to the eighth magnitude make no 
increase as the gauges rise towards the circle ; stars 
of the ninth and tenth magnitudes increase in num- 
ber only from about 30° each way out of the circle ; 
stars of the eleventh magnitude increase from near 
the galactic poles ; and from the twelfth magnitude 
and more, the increase appears as if quite from the 
poles. These disproportioned numbers in the stars 
of different magnitudes demand for our system a 
place above the pure ethereal inner sphere, and so 
far within the material stellar envelope, that stars 
to the eighth magnitude may stand between that 
position and the pure ether towards the centre, and 
that no stars stand there beyond that magnitude. 
Of course, at a longer radius from our position, stars 
of the ninth and tenth magnitudes will appear in the 
lower edges of the stellar envelope towards each ga- 
lactic pole, and begin from that degree below the 
circle to increase towards the circle ; the eleventh 
magnitude will appear at a radius reaching near the 
pole, and increase upwards from it ; the twelfth and 
higher magnitudes will stand between the spectator 
and the poles, the higher the further on in the polar 
direction, and all increasing at once as the gauge 
rises towards the galactic circle. Our solar system 
must be so far imbedded in the stellar annulus, that 
stars to the eighth magnitude may stand all about it, 



278 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



but not those of the ninth and tenth magnitude, be- 
tween it and the grand centre. 

A fourth fact is, that portions of the galaxy have 
never been penetrated through to open space beyond, 
by the highest magnifying glasses. It was a con- 
jecture which Sir William Herschel once expressed 
in his early astronomical writings, that our system 
lay imbedded in the milky-way, and that this was 
but one among the many nebulae, others of which 
might fill as large a space as the galaxy itself. This 
notion is still indulged solely from Herschel's ex- 
pressed conjecture. But later in Herschel's obser- 
vations, he came to find that the most powerful tele- 
scopes could not reach to the extent of the furthest 
stars of the milky way, and thus that no nebula was 
provable to be further from us than some portion 
of the galaxy, and therefore the conjecture that the 
galaxy was itself one of the nebulas would be absurd. 
Says Humboldt, Cosmos, Vol. III. p. 149, "William 
Herschel, in his last works, expressed himself strong- 
ly in favor of the assumption of an annulus of stars ; 
a view which he had contested in the talented trea- 
tise he had composed in 1784. The most recent 
observations have favored the hypothesis of a sys- 
tem of separate concentric rings. The thickness of 
these rings seems very unequal; and the different 
strata, whose combined stronger or fainter light we 
receive, are undoubtedly situated at very different 
altitudes." 

A fifth fact is, that the Galactic Circle is inclined 



RELATIVE POSITION OP OUR SYSTEM. 279 

about 40° to the ecliptic, and its plane inclines about 
63° to that of the celestial equator, intersecting this 
last on each side of the centre at about 10° from the 
equinoctial points; and thus determines the varied 
positions and directions of our terrestrial abode in 
the system, and the heavenly objects seen from it. 
The plane of the terrestrial equator is 23*° inclined 
to the ecliptic; and thus the earth's axis is 66^° in- 
clined to the ecliptic; and which puts the earth's 
north pole nearly in the direction of the north star 
among the celestial constellations, and the south 
terrestrial pole in the direction of the constellation 
Octans. The north galactic pole, as perpendicular 
to the plane of the galactic circle, will be from us 
nearly in the direction of the constellation Coma 
Berenices, and the southern galactic pole between 
the tail of Cetus and Apparatus Sculptoris. 

A sixth application of facts relates to the position 
and distance of nebular and stellar clusters. The 
largest glasses pierce the heavens to more than two 
thousand times the distance of stars of the first mag- 
nitude ; and from which, as estimated by experiment 
of the sun's rays, light would be more than twelve 
thousand years in making its passage. In the ga- 
lactic circle, at some portions, stars of the first mag- 
nitude stand in front of the deeper brightness, and 
while in places we look through to dark, open space 
beyond, in others the background is so completely 
studded with stars as to be -wholly unbroken in its 
brightness. Nebulae are none, or almost so, in the 



280 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

galaxy ; but clusters of stars and nebulae are numer- 
ous at distances from it. The place of greatest num- 
ber is a region above the north galactic pole, and 
some remarkable ones are about the south galactic 
pole ; but the most important fact for present use is 
their resolvability relatively to their positions in the 
heavens. Those which are irresolvable are in direc- 
tions admitting of the largest distance, while in direc- 
tions admitting only of least extreme distance there 
are none irresolvable. Taking the relative position 
above ascertained for our System in the great Uni- 
versal sphere, it is easy to determine the direction 
and bearing, through the constellations on the celes- 
tial sphere in which the clusters and nebulas are 
found, towards the points from which the longest 
radii may be drawn. The nearest part of the periph- 
ery of the universal sphere to our system must 
be the region about the north galactic pole, and a 
little back from this pole are the numerous clusters 
found in the constellations Leo Major, Coma Bereni- 
ces, and the head and wings of Virgo, and all resol- 
vable by large telescopes. At a longer radius to 
the furthest stars from our system, in the sword- 
handle of Orion, is the long noticed and remarkable 
nebula, which, with Lord Ross's great telescope, was 
barely resolved, the stars being still too close to be 
counted ; and about an equal distance from the outer 
universal surface is another nebula in the girdle of 
Andromeda, and which is resolved with the like diffi- 
culty. There are also the Magellanic clouds, known 



RELATIVE POSITION OP OUR SYSTEM. 281 

as Nubecula Major and Minor, standing about 12° 
apart, aud from 26° to 30° back from tbe soutb celes- 
tial pole, thus admitting of their being from us at 
nearly the greatest possible distance, and which 
are among the most remarkable phenomena of the 
heavens. They have their distinct clusters and neb- 
ulae of various magnitudes, but the base of all is 
a brightness hitherto utterly unresolved. There 
should be also added the large nebula in the con- 
stellation Argo, admitting from direction of being 
also at greatest possible distance, aud which shows 
no tendency to resolution through the most power- 
ful glasses. We cannot say of these unresolved 
nebulae that they are the furthest possible from 
us ; it is much that they stand in direction, from the 
position above attained for our system, in which the 
longest lines may be drawn to the periphery of the 
universal sphere. 

A seventh, and now last noticed galactic fact, is the 
peculiar bifurcation of the galactic circle. This cir- 
cle is narrowest, and yet brightest, when viewed near 
the constellation of the Southern Cross and the hind 
feet of Centaurus, being about 3° in breadth. In its 
broadest undivided portions, it reaches to 15°. In 
some parts the circle seems nearly broken ; but the 
more notable peculiarity is a remarkable separation, 
or forking into two distinct belts, which again come 
together. Starting in the southern terrestrial hemi- 
sphere, the bifurcation begins near the constellation 
Circinus and the fore feet of Centaurus. The more 



282 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

southerly fork passes unbroken through the constel- 
lations Aquila, Sagitta, Vulpecula, and more irregu- 
larly, on to Cygnus. The northerly fork loses itself 
near the foot of Serpentarius, but appears again 
further on, and joins the southerly fork about 130° 
from their separation. The two forks nowhere but 
slightly diverge from a mid-Line, but in their widest 
portion they fill about 22° from the outsides. The 
certainty of a separation of the galaxy throughout 
cannot be affirmed, as with the planets in our system 
is the fact, of from 30' to 3° 30' from a mid-line between 
Neptune and Uranus ; but if there is, it could not be 
observed from our eccentric position to a greater dis- 
tance than is the galactic bifurcation. The divided 
ranks opening over us would appear to join both ways 
considerably short of half their complete circle. At 
least, the irregularities, cessations, and separations in 
the galactic circle indicate the stars about the mid- 
plane to have had oblique projections, from unequal 
accumulations about a common revolving sphere, and 
a probability that the same continues through the 
equatorial plane. 

So, our solar system has its determinable place 
among the stars, and the universe of stars has its 
fixed centre and definite periphery. Every world has 
its exact balance and harmonious movement. The 
whole is of such extent that the rapidity of light 
traverses the broader interstellar spaces only after 
a flight of many thousand years; yet is the ethereal 
light-medium everywhere diffused, and the light-vi- 






RELATIVE POSITION OP OUR SYSTEM. 283 

brations, from all surrounding solar systems, come 
down through the pure ether upon the centre, in 
unrefracted clearness. Here is the source of cre- 
ative Power and eternal Wisdom, hiding itself in light 
to which no mortal eye approaches. Not planets 
around suns, and suns and systems around some 
greater orb, and the highest with no ultimate sup- 
port; but an independent Spiritual source originat- 
ing all, and sending out all, and holding all in equi- 
poise, through this one fixed centre. Matter can 
never give a first of either motion or rest, nor either 
one from the other, and without the spiritual the ma- 
terial is wholly inexplicable. A sentimenlal fancy 
may please itself a while in fleeing from sun to sun 
to get hold on something stable ; but a necessity 
comes at length to all to stop and rest; and mate- 
rialism has no resting-place. It cannot find whence 
it comes nor whither it goes ; and only as we hold 
in reason can we know an origin, a progress, or a 
consummation. 



284 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



CHAPTER III. 

LIFE. 

1. Life distinguished from Force, in that it de- 
termines higher Unities. — Distinguishable unities 
mark distinctive kinds of Being, and in nothing can 
we note the distinction between Force and Life, 
and in Life the distinctions between Organizing 
Instinct, Sense-consciousness, and Spiritual Person- 
ality, so clearly and comprehensively as in the 
respective unities which each is severally compe- 
tent to determine. 

The phenomena gained in experience can have 
no intrinsic unity. They are singles which may be 
outwardly conjoined, but not inherently connected. 
The handful .of sand or the bundle of rods is still 
so many singles ; and the chain is but so many single 
links, and as destitute of essential unity when the 
links shut within, as if they were joined outside of 
each other. The Building is so many pieces, still 
as single when framed and mortised as when lying 
loose from each other. They may be externally 
joined, never essentially united. Yet of such out- 
side jo'ining of singles there is a made-up whole ; 
and to distinguish the conjoined from the separate 



LIFE DISTINCT FROM FORCE. 285 

singularity, it may be allowable to speak of it as a 
factitious unity. 

Phenomenal qualities frequently standing together, 
and events frequently occurring in the same order 
of succession, aro universally spoken of as having 
some necessary connection, and the notion of sub- 
stance is put as the connective of the qualities, 
and the notion of cause as connective of the events, 
and so nature is bound together in what is assumed 
to be laws of experience ; but when we discard 
the insight of reason, and refer such connection to 
the judgment of the logical understanding, we can 
find nothing to justify our use of the notions of sub- 
stance and cause, and are forced to a scepticism of 
all necessary connection, and admit that we know 
only single qualities grouped together, and single 
events as sequents to each other. The laws of 
connection are mere facts of occurrence, and we 
have no other warrant for any inherent unity, save 
that in our experience they have in fact so stood 
together in place, and so followed each other in 
period. Yet because an unrecognized rationality 
urges the assumption of such connections, as if 
there were somehow a unity, we may term it a 
quasi-unity. 

When, however, the recognition of the distinctive 
reason-intelligence enables us to contemplate forces 
in their essential constitution and working, we know 
how singles come to lose their singularity, and stand 
in veritable unity, in which the component singles 



286 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



neutralize themselves in a third single unlike to 
either constituent. So the insight of reason con- 
templates two spiritual impulses, working in antag- 
onism at a common limit, and becoming united action 
and reaction, as losing their distinctive energies in a 
third thing which is itself single, and therein knows 
essentially the existence of Force. So, again, we con- 
template the single forces, shutting themselves together 
at the centre by their gravitating and bi-polar ener- 
gies, as losing their singularities in a third single, 
which we then essentiaUy know as an independent 
Atom. And so, again, single material and ethereal 
atoms are contemplated, as shutting themselves in 
cohesion by the implications of their respective im- 
pulses and expulses, and in this lose their distinctive 
atomic singularities, and become another single as 
a primitive molecule, and which henceforth we know 
as simple Substance. So far as we may get insight 
of the neutralizing working of the component atoms, 
we know the essence of the simple substance, the 
distinct varieties of which present experience num- 
bers sixty-six. 

Finally, two simple substances in affinity come in 
chemical combination, completely neutralizing their 
old forces, and working in unison as a single new 
force, and thus make a new single substance unlike 
either ingredient. So oxygen and hydrogen in due 
proportions combine as water, in which the compo- 
nent singles are lost, and the new thing is as truly 
a single as was either the oxygen or hydrogen. 



LIFE DISTINCT FROM FORCE. 287 

Nature's forces are seen by reason to be continually 
converting themselves into new substances while can- 
celling the old, and yet the old is not annihilated, for 
the new may be again resolved to the old. The neu- 
tralized action and reaction of the two has become 
wholly another action in the third, manifesting itself 
in experience in new qualities, and inducing other 
effects. 

In all the above cases the old elements negate them- 
selves, and appear as wholly a new single thing; and 
such essential unity of component singles into a new 
single is known as negative unity — not as if opposed to 
positive unity, but the posited unit has been consti- 
tuted by the negation of the elementary units. The 
elementary units in their affinities are properly com- 
plementary each to each, and when apart may, in a 
sense, be said mutually to need each the other ; they 
cannot fill out their combined action apart one from 
the other; but neither has any efficiency to supply 
the other. The need is a lack, and wholly empty and 
helpless in affording to itself the complementary relief. 
So an acid may be said to need its alkaline base, but 
wholly outside of itself must come the efficiency that 
supplies the base and complements itself thereby in 
the neutral salt. The elements, brought together 
within the spheres of their several energies, complete 
themselves by cancelling their old energies in essen- 
tially another kind of substantial force. We thus 
comprehend the very essence of a negative unity. 
The energies of complemental forces neutralize them- 



288 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



selves and become another kind of force., but the unity- 
is effected only within the sphere of the elementary 
action, and when the new unit is constituted, it has 
no need to go out of itself in complement with any 
other. The negative unity is henceforth a static in 
its place, and does nothing to work new combinations 
and extend unities beyond its place. Let the combi- 
nations in negative unity fill place to any extent, yet 
each point has its own unity in its own neutralized 
energies. Every part of the salt has its own saitness, 
and no unit goes out of itself in communication with 
another. Every unit perpetuates its cancelling with- 
in itself, but is wholly dead to all participation in the 
cancelling of units beyond itself. 

If, however, we should speculatively contemplate 
the deficient element to have some way within itself a 
feeling of its deficiency, and which thereby attains to 
a craving want instead of a bare lack, the deficiency 
will from its self-feeling have become an e/ficiency, 
and go out in longing to find its complement, and 
consummate its unity in so cancelling the two that 
they become another one. Once endowed with this 
craving want, the element will no longer be held in 
its inertia, but will have an intrinsic prompting to go 
over of its own accord to its complement and satisfy 
its longing. A simple want, however, prompts only 
to an immediate outgoing, with no inducement for a 
returning ; spontaneously tending to its end, with no 
reflex action back upon itself; it can, therefore, never 
come to any self-recognition. It cannot be conscious 



LIFE DISTINCT FROM FORCE. 289 

of tho impulsive prompting urging on, nor have any 
remembrance of the activity when past, but is solely 
a thrusting in to its direct issue ; and this is literally 
an instinct. An appetite involves a recognition of 
the fitness of the object to the Avant ;j and a desire 
involves a remembrance of pi'evious gratification; but 
an instinct thrusts through to its end in pure uncon- 
scious spontaneity. The element with the want, of 
its own accord, communicates with its complemental 
element, and secures the negative unity ; but the want 
still urges on to further communion, and goes over 
into other complemental combinations, thereby putting 
negative unities themselves in unity. This sponta- 
neous uniting of negative unities themselves is wholly 
the product of the want, and could never be produced 
by the complemental elements alone, which of them- 
selves must, ever rest in their neutralization, with no 
going beyond to a further union. And now, in this 
spontaneous uniting of negative unities, we have the 
higher unity which has passed beyond all the combi- 
nations of dead mechanical forces, and stands within 
the sphere of living agencies. We have contemplated 
it in its simplest state, and have it in speculation as 
pure unconscious instinct, but still a spontaneous 
agency competent to multiply negative unities all 
about the first unity, and to diffuse itself all through 
the body of unities which it thus holds together in 
complete individuality. No one unit of all the indi- 
vidualized unities can be taken away without sun- 
dering the diffused bond which holds all in common. 
19 



290 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

Thus the life-power determines the distinctive unity 
of individuality. 

2. The Contemplation of an Agency competent to 
work Individualities. — In contemplating cohesion, 
we saw the necessity that ethereal atoms should be in- 
terposed amid material atoms. Material impulses hold 
together as attraction, but cannot implicate them- 
selves in fixed connection, since those of each atom 
work towards its own centre, and not to act and react 
with the impulses of other atoms. But the diremp- 
tive action of ethereal atoms works directly in impli- 
cation with the impulses of material atoms, and when 
the ethereal stands between material atoms the action 
of the expulses and impulses must interpenetrate in 
mutual cohesion. And still further, when matter is 
in cohesion, it is the vibratory agitation of the inter- 
posed ethereal forces which breaks up the cohesion, 
and puts solid matter in solution. As media for com- 
bination, and also for dissolution that there may be 
recombinations, the interposition of ethereal forces is 
indispensable ; and where their agency can be con- 
trolled and applied for this purpose, the ethereal me- 
dium is a sufficient interposition. A spontaneous user 
of diremptive forces is a competent agent to assimi- 
late complemental elements, to combine them in nega- 
tive unities, and to go out of the effected unity, in 
communication with other complemental elements, 
and add their unity to former combinations. 

The ethereal expulses must thus become the instru- 



LIVING INDIVIDUALITIES. 291 

ment for effecting this higher unity of negative uni- 
ties, and bringing them into individuality. The ex- 
pulses are themselves spiritual activities, but we now 
contemplate them as receiving a more sublimated 
spiritual agency than that of their original energy. 
The instinctive want to combine complemental ele- 
ments is now contemplated as infused into the ex- 
pulses of the ethereal atom, and it becomes instinct with 
the spontaneous prompting to put itself in composi- 
tion with congenial material elements, and work their 
combination, and to go over from the combination 
already brought in negative unity, to neutralize fur- 
ther complemental elements, and thereby build up an 
extended body of unities which shall be held in indi- 
viduality by its own thorough diffusion and connec- 
tion with every part. The superinduction of the 
instinctive want upon the direraptive expulse is also 
a reciprocal intussusception of their respective ener- 
gies. The expulsive energy takes in the want, and 
the spontaneous want takes the mechanical energy, 
and a new existence is begun hitherto unknown 
among mechanical forces. The craving want is utter- 
ly a creation, and its superinduction upon an already 
created existence puts a new being into nature as 
really from the Creator's act, as in the primal origina- 
tion of force itself. The atoms, on whose expulses 
this instinctive want is superinduced, now stand out 
amid the ethereal and material atoms distinct in es- 
sence from all else the universe contains. Such atom 
has pure spontaneity, forever separating it from all 



292 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



the mere push and pull of mechanical movement, 
Herein is the real Proto-Bion, and the Light of the 
world becomes literally Life in the world. No ethe- 
real atom can wake within itself such instinctive 
prompting, nor can it be an impartation from any phys- 
ical forces, antagonist, diremptive, or revolving ; it 
overrules and uses physical force, and can have exist- 
ence only from the Absolute Source of all origination. 

Such superinduction of the instinctive want upon 
ethereal force by the absolute Creator evinces, in the 
reason of the case itself, that it must have been for 
the attainment of ends beyond what could have been 
secured by the latter alone. If mechanical forces 
could have answered the purposes of spontaneous 
instincts, the latter must have been brought into ex- 
istence for no reason ; the life-instinct is made in vain. 
It is not made from force, but is added to force, that 
it may use force in subserviency to its own end ; and 
in this only is the wisdom of the making and superin- 
ducing, that thereby the expulses may serve new 
purposes. 

The expulses of the ethereal atom are on this ac- 
count put under the control of the life-instinct, and it 
is competent for it to direct them for its own interest 
by changing their balance, and giving an excess of 
expulse on one side, thus inducing and directing 
movement, and thereby modifying and appropriating 
to its own use both ethereal and material atoms about 
it. The instinctive want is not force ; nor is it com- 
petent for it to give any new force ; but it uses the 



LIFE ASSIMILATION. 293 

forces already in being upon which it has been super- 
induced. When it has taken and used force, and there- 
by exhausted it, the spontaneous want communicates 
itself to other forces, and assimilates and incorporates, 
and then dissolves and eliminates them. In mechan- 
ics, the force controlling other forces^ is called a pow- 
er ; and though nut itself force, yet in its use of the 
forces it infuses, this life-want maybe properly termed 
life-power. Taking advantage of physical forces, the 
life-power serves its ends by the help of nature, or 
uses one part of nature's forces to counteract others, 
and convert opposing forces to its want, and so works 
its way r even against nature, in putting negative uni- 
ties together in an individual body which it builds up 
as its own dwelling, and which is indivisible except 
in violent dismemberment, and is therefore an agency 
producing strict individualities. 

3. The Life-power is an Assimilative Agent. — 
The life-want is a spontaneous longing or craving for 
its own satisfying, and it controls the ethereal ener- 
gies it has pervaded so that they work on and in 
dead matter, in some of its substantial forces, and 
render it complemental, in particular t elements, for 
new and largely extended combinations beyond what 
the mere mechanical action of forces can effect. It 
separates existing cohesions, dissolves old combina- 
tions, changes inner antagonisms to other polarities 
and attractions, and thus induces new affinities, and 
thereby introduces into nature a vital chemistry pe- 



294 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

culiar to its own working, having new equivalents 
constituting new substances. It thus assimilates new 
elements to its own ends, and fits them together for 
constituting its needed incorporations. Not all the 
complemental elements which mechanical chemistry 
works in combination is used by the life-power, and 
but four simple substances are made by it to enter 
into complete combination. Carbon and the three 
elementary gases — oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen 
— it assimilates and completely incorporates, and these 
only. Sometimes in the ternary combinations of car- 
bon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and sometimes in the 
quaternary combination when nitrogen is added. Car- 
bonic acid is the union in chemical proportions of 
carbon and oxygen ; water is the like union of hydro- 
gen and oxygen ; and ammonia the like union of nitro- 
gen and hydrogen; and with these three substances 
at hand, the life-power can supply itself with all the 
simple elements it ever completely assimilates. If 
either were wanting in our world, it would not yet 
be ready for the introduction of the life-instinct. 
Many other elements mingle in with these when build- 
ing up living bodies, such as phosphor, sulphur, 
iron, silex, &c. ; but they are supplementary only, fill- 
ing in and supporting the structure, but not comple- 
mentary as neutralized in the new product. Ethereal 
vibration, as sensible light and heat, is necessary to 
living assimilation as really as the presence of the 
ethereal atoms themselves ; and except in excess, the 
growth and vigor of the living body is as the meas- 



LIFE ASSIMILATION. 295 

uro of light and heat; but these light- and heat-vibra- 
tions are but preparative and conditional, and not the 
efficient powers in the work of assimilation. And 
how it is, that the insight of reason determines the 
life-want to be the efficient power in assimilating the 
complementary elements, may be manifested in put- 
ting together the following facts. 

By strongly assisted vision careful observers fob 
lowed up the phenomenal process of vital growth to 
the life-cell, and found this to consist of a covering 
membrane with an inner film about a minute globule 
of viscous fluid, in which floated lesser particles that 
were colored, yet partially transparent. The ele- 
mentary constituents of all bodies, vegetable and 
animal, were chemically in this cell-matter ;• and what- 
ever tbe living body might be, its base was a multi- 
plication of such life-cells, with similar appearance in 
all. The cells were found to multiply and enlarge 
themselves by various methods, and the aggregates 
of cell-production were known as cellulose; which 
standing in consistency was known as tissue; if only 
a superficial expansion it is cellular tissue, and if 
cylindrical in extension it is vascular tissue. 

A more protracted and careful examination found 
the membraneous envelope and the inner film to be a 
product of the inside viscous fluid ; and passing over 
the peculiarities of the outside tissue, the interest 
was restricted to the primitive inside matter as the 
essential constituent in all cell-life, and the one com- 
mon substance out of which all forms of living bodies 



296 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



in plants and animals are constructed. As a com- 
pound of the elements known as combined in living- 
structures, and thus as the pabulum and nutriment 
for organic existences, and competent to take on all 
the fabled forms of Proteus, it was called protein ; 
but as assumed to be one and the same thing in it- 
self, and passing out in equivocal generation into all 
varieties of organic existence from its own plastic 
nature and tendency, it was known as protoplasm. 
Eminent physicists take this as the ultimate that 
is reached in the domain of life ; and that it is not 
needful we should attempt to attain a deeper fact or 
apply a broader law ; but just as water is the prod- 
uct of its constituent elements in favoring condi- 
tions, and crystals have their solid forms and angles 
from the nature of their ingredients when the oc- 
casion for their combination is given, so living bodies 
have all their peculiarities from the intrinsic nature 
of the protoplastic matter out of which they are con- 
structed. Protoplasm first is, and all forms of life 
spring up out of it. Further experience by equally 
eminent observers finds facts which render it wholly 
unscientific to suppose all forms of life to spring from 
one protoplastic substance. Plant-formations spring- 
directly from the mineral kingdom, and in them is 
produced the protoplasm which makes animal life 
possible. The animal organism cannot be till first 
the plant has been, and so the vegetable and animal 
body cannot each have the same protoplastic origin. 
In the animal body, each organ and distinctive prod- 



LIFE ASSIMILATION. 297 

uct ha9 its appropriate protoplasm, which cannot be 
made interchangeable. The protoplasm of a muscle 
cannot produce a nerve, nor can that of either a 
muscle or a nerve produce a bone ; nor can an eye 
grow from the protoplasm of an ear; nor can the 
protoplasm of an unicellular plant grow out in the 
body of another species of plant ; and so of all vegeta- 
tion. The fruit of one tree cannot produce itself into 
the life of another specifically different tree. Some 
protoplasm appropriates as already living, and some 
can only be appropriated by the living as itself al- 
ready dead. Certainly, if all life comes from proto- 
plasm, the protoplasm is not ultimate, for something 
beyond it must be making wide modifications of it. 

A later and more profoundly complete and satis- 
factory examination of the living process of assimila- 
tion and growth has been attained by tinging certain 
specimens in a carmine solution. The mildew, yeast, 
and sugar plant: the mucous,and white-blood corpuscle; 
the simplest life known in the yet structureless amce- 
bse, and the forming of the most complicated muscle 
and nerve organisms ; all nJay so be subjected to di- 
rect inspection under the highest microscopic en- 
largement. There are thus made to appear three 
different forms of matter concerned in the assimila- 
tive process — the germinal or forming, the fixed or 
formed, and the nutrient substances. The nutrient 
matter is yet lifeless, the formed matter appears fixed 
in the vital tissue, and the germinal matter is mov- 
ing through the constructing and growing process. 



298 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



The germinating matter has everywhere and every- 
way internal motion, and this movement manifestly 
spontaneous and diremptive from various centres, and 
the central points moving of their own accord any 
way through the mass, by no mechanical pulsation or 
chemical affinities. The membraneous tissue enclos- 
ing a cell, or standing any way as a fixed fibre, is the 
formed product, woven from the forming germinal 
movement, out of the assimilated nutrient matter 
brought within reach. So the cell-envelopment is 
seen in its forming process. Sometimes the germinal 
matter is seen protruding itself, and looping itself by 
a tissue with the mass left behind ; and at other times 
spinning in its wake muscular fibres, or nerve-fila- 
ments, and laying them along a former similar con- 
struction; or again working in the germinal matter at 
the bulbous root of a hair, and pushing out from it the 
spicule already constructed. The carmine tinge does 
not pass over from the forming matter into the formed 
structure, and hence within the product no motion ap- 
pears; but while in use by the life-power, the formed 
member must still be a living member, though por- 
tions of it may be successively becoming effete and 
dry, and needing elimination. No chemical combina- 
tion can make cellulose from protein, nor put formed 
cellulose back again to protein ; but here the spon- 
taneous agency is in the germinal matter, moving 
and using it for an organic construction wholly after 
its own peculiar arrangement. The nutrient matter 
becomes altogether a new thing in the formed matter, 



LIFE ASSIMILATION. 299 

and often the same nutrient is made into different 
tissues, and what is salutary to one is sometimes utter- 
ly destructive to another. The living instinct is here 
verily back of all protoplasm, and is the Avorking chem- 
ist first making his own instruments, and with them 
modifying and combining the protoplasm to his own 
distinctive organic ends, and then abiding in the 
structure he makes, and serving himself of its con- 
veniences at pleasure. Not material force, but a 
spontaneous user of force, is manifest in this diver- 
sified assimilating and incorporating. 

The life-power in its first and lower stages barely 
assimilates its matter to its end in individualizing its 
combinations. The first and lowest life-want is just 
to multiply negative unities, and communicate itself 
all through them in individuality, and then let the 
individuality fall apart in unicellular productions. 
Each cell has many negative unities, and all held in 
strict individuality, and every going over to a new 
cell is but repeating the old process of multiplication 
by dichotomy ; prolonging the old life by cutting it 
into separate individuals. So the snow-plant of 
Alpine and Arctic regions is unicellular, and individual 
in its one instinct diffused all through the cell, and 
this cell divides itself into other cells that break from 
it, and each in turn parts into others; and so in a 
very short period the snow-plant multiplies and covers 
an area of many acres. So the brittleworts abound 
in ocean and fresh water, and on the bare earth. 
They absorb carbonic acid and give out oxygen in 



300 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



large measures, purifying water and air for higher 
animal life, and supporting that life when it comes by 
yielding their own cellulose, in exhaustless amount, 
as food to nourish these more complicated bodies. 
Their single microscopic cells have neither leaf, 
nor bud, nor seed, nor sex, but live and multiply 
solely from the original life-want that was in the 
first, and communicates itself in prolongation through 
all. The life-instinct is thus in these and other 
unicellular products in perpetual activity which is 
barely assimilative. 



4. The Assimilative Agency must be elevated to 
an Organizing Agency. — The amount of protoplastic 
or cellulose sustenance in unicellular bodies, in the 
earlier geological epochs, from its rapid multiplication 
must soon have opened the way for higher forms of 
life. Deleterious gases were held in combination, and 
salutary elements were disengaged, and appropriate 
nourishment was prepared, and thus the need must 
arise from these meliorating' conditions, in the ongoing 
of Nature, for more complicated living structures. 

Speculatively, the original assimilative want can no 
more raise itself to the higher want" requisite to these 
meliorated conditions, than the mere mechanical force 
could have raised itself to a living instinct. All 
beyond the assimilative power is a mere lack ; a 
helpless deficiency ; and can minister nothing to the 
efficient supply which is to fill the empty need. The 
same creative source which gave the assimilative 



LIFE ORGANIZATION. 301 

instinct must now give this higher want, which, of its 
own accord, shall prompt to its own satisfying. It 
cannot be development from the mere assimilative 
instinct, but must be a direct origination of so much as 
reaches beyond the mere assimilative agency. Specu- 
latively, it might be taken that the higher life-instinct 
needed would be produced when the meliorated con- 
ditions came, and thus the created supply be afforded 
successively : but as with the creation of the mechani- 
cal atoms, it may better be assumed that all needed 
and designed grades of instinctive life-want were, at 
the outset, superinduced upon ethereal energies, and 
that each, as primitively created, Avaits its appropriate 
occasion to do its work in the better circumstances 
when the period arrives. This anticipative provision 
would equally manifest divine power and wisdom as 
in a directly extemporaneous interposition, and with 
seemingly more comprehensive self-possession and 
dignity in the Author. 

As, then, the occasion for more complicated assimi- 
lations shall come, there must be present, in addition 
to the feeling of deficiency for merely incorporating 
complemental elements, a feeling of deficiency for 
securing helps and instruments for working these 
more complicated assimilations, and which will be a 
higher life-instinct than that which has been working 
unicellular products. 

Such advanced instinctive want is superinduced 
upon the lighf>force, and the light becomes at once a 
so much higher life-power, and competent to so much 



302 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

higher and complex assimilations. The sustenance to 
be appropriated lies about, different in kind and in 
diverse localities. The food from the earth, and 
water, and air, must have facile instruments for taking 
and using according to its condition. In unicellular 
life, this is at hand, and immediately imbibed and 
absorbed in the cell-assimilations ; but now, what is in 
earth and water must be mingled in assimilation with 
that which is in the air ; and root and stock, branch 
and leaf, must be provided to minister their subser- 
viences accordingly. Where the food itself removes, 
or is already in remote places, the structure must 
have members for locomotion, and for grasping, 
carrying, and digesting while moving; and this entire 
apparatus must be packed in accordant consistency. 
While, then, the morphology of one kingdom must be 
of root, stem, and branches, another kingdom will 
have its rule over constructions in the general form 
of head, body, and conforming members ; and in both 
these kingdoms, their varied general structures must 
have their particular conformations and arranged mem- 
bers according to what is to be each one's habitat and 
mode of life. The instinctive want must prompt in 
the building of the structure, and the laws of com- 
parative anatomy and physiology will be already 
determined in the spontaneous instinct superinduced 
upon the ethereal atom. Each primitive life-power 
will have in it, from the Creator, its own type of 
construction and mode of perpetuation. 

Here we rise to a higher unity than that of Individ- 



LIFE ORGANIZATION. 303 

uality. The many combinations in negative unity 
are held in the indivisible bond of the same diffused 
instinct not only, but here are distinct instinctive con- 
structions held in one by a spontaneity that runs 
through all. Each organ, as the leaf of the plant, or 
the lungs of the animal, or the ear or eye of sense, 
is strictly an individual, having its own. instinctive 
want controlling its own construction, and building 
it up from its own exclusive protoplasm or cellulose 
growth; and yet all the individual organs are held 
subservient to a higher Individuality that controls 
them while they subserve it, making of all organs an 
organism in strict organic unity. 

And so the distinctive and graded types of organic 
life are given at the start by the Creator, in the super- 
induction of appropriate instinctive wants upon .ethe- 
real forces, which spontaneously go out to their con- 
structive work when the occasions open. From the 
unicellular plant-life there rises, through all types of 
plant-production in their primal grades of instinct 
as originally created, all vegetable forms not only, but 
these prepare the way for types of organism in a 
higher kingdom, and which are alike created at the 
start, and begin the construction of the lowest animal 
forms of life, but little subsequent to and immediately 
starting up from the lowest plant-formations. The 
brittleworts scarcely begin their multiplying ei-e the 
jelly-like forms of the protozoa are introduced, and 
the world of sense opens scarcely above the life of 
plant-instinct. In their lowest forms, the protozoa 



304 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

take their food without a mouth, digest without a 
stomach, move without muscles, and multiply with 
no media of embryo, or egg, or sex. There is barely 
assimilation with scarcely incipient organization. But 
soon the rising orders of the Foraminifera are found, 
whose fossil remains are as countless as the sands 
with which they are mingled. Their complex shapes, 
and colored shells, and incipient sense-organs, show 
the decidedly opening work of the organizing agency. 
The unicellular constructions at the base of the 
vegetable kingdom are the support also of the azotic 
cellulose of the animal kingdom, and from this ground, 
in graded organism, each pyramid of plant and animal 
life rises, with less breadth as the organism is the 
more elevated, in diverging lines of direction con- 
joined' at the bottom, but wide apart in separate 
grandeur at their tops. 

5. A higher Organizing Instinct works Sex-dis- 
tinctions. — Rising above unicellular life, among the 
earlier plants are such as exhibit incipient organs 
with distinct functions, but which are yet rootless, 
leafless, and flowerless ; and still further along are 
plants with root, stock, and forming leaf, utterly 
sexless, and which perpetuate their kind from collected 
grains of protein enclosed in spores, that start ofl" 
in separate plants from any part of the spore's sur- 
face. And so, also, with the lower forms of animal 
life ; they are but memberless masses of cellulose, 
multiplying by dividing in parts, with no sexual dis- 



LIFE IN SEX-DISTINCTIONS. 305 

tinction. These separate bodies are but as separate 
buds of the same plant, or at most as extensions of 
the same plant by slips and grafts. They have no 
propagation of new individuals. 

But for higher organization, and wider variety, 
and renewals in fresh vitality, and an opening way 
towards communion in social life, there comes the 
need for propagating the kind, in new individuals, 
through successive generations. To practically meet 
the empty need, there must here, as in all former 
cases of rising to a higher life in a higher unity, be 
an original addition to the instinctive life-want. The 
deficiency is in a higher point, and a new feeling 
must wake to it, and be a want for it, and a prompt- 
ing instinct to fill it ; and this new instinct can only 
come from the great creative source. In the light of 
reason " it is not good " that the single organism " be 
alone ; " the " help meet for it " is, a division of the one 
organic life into two genders, and the begetting of 
descendants through this double parentage. Leaving 
some of the lower organic forms to perpetuate their 
kind, solely by separating the growing cellulose into 
parts, the Creator superinduces upon the organizing 
instinct, for other and higher forms, the further spon- 
taneity to put that one organic life in two divisions 
of male and female, and give the one stock in two 
sexes. Such imparted formative instinct organizes 
the female with an ovarium, in which are the proto- 
plastic elements for new organizations, but which in 
themselves alone are wholly component organs of the 
20 



306 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

female, and belong to the one female life. The or- 
ganizing instinct constitutes the male with sexual 
organs, in which ethereal elements are infused with 
the life-power for new fertilization, but which is yet 
a component part of the male organism, and stands in 
its one life, and can go over into no new organization 
of its own. except as it shall embody itself in the 
protoplastic preparations of the female ovarium. In 
both cases, separate sexual life is fruitless, and prop- 
agation ensues only on the concurrence of the two 
sexual vitalities. This newly engendered life, in the 
incipient organizing of the female protoplasm, begins 
a new individual, known as an embryo. The life-power 
from the male is known as the sperm; and the pro- 
toplastic contribution of the female is known as the 
germ; the concrete unity of the two is a new In- 
dividual Organism. The parentage is conjoint, and 
the offspring several ; every descendant of the dual 
parentage is in as distinct individuality as was either 
the male or the female Ancestor. 

This sex-organizing instinct works in varied forms 
in the vegetable and animal kingdom. While the 
merely organizing instinct, in the plant, sets the leaf- 
bud in its place, that it may minister to the elonga- 
tion and enlargement of stem and branch, the sex- 
organizing instinct, annually or so often as there is 
fruit-bearing, sets the seed-bud of quite another kind 
in place for the end of new propagations ; and this in 
its way and season flowers and ripens into fruit, which 
fruit has in it the embryo of a new organic individu- 



LIFE IN SEX-DISTINCTIONS. 307 

ality. The plant itself has no sex; but its sex-organiz- 
ing instinct produces in it, year by year, its sex-dis- 
tinctions. These, on filling the sex-want, pass away 
to rise again in their period for successive propaga- 
tions. Commonly, the seed-bud holds both sexes, 
and the opening flower in the same calyx has the 
male organs of stamen, anther, and pollen, and also 
the female arrangement of pistil and ovule. The 
generation of the seed is carried on within the same 
floral envelope. Sometimes the male organs occupy 
one part of the plant, and the female another and 
even quite distant part, as in the maize ; again, a 
wider separation is found, as in varieties of the 
strawberry, with male and female flowers on their 
separate plants. The common form of plant-sexualiza- 
tion is known as hermaphrodite, the second form as 
monoecious, and the third as dioecious. The sex can 
hardly be said to belong to the plant, but to the 
flowers the sex-instinct brings from the plant. 

In animal life, the lower forms can scarcely be dis- 
tinguished from plants, and have had the name zo- 
ophytes, as though they were participants of both 
kingdoms. But as zoophytes multiply in their sex- 
less varieties and numbers, there comes the need for 
sexual distinction, and the organizing instinct is origi- 
nated and works out the kind in two genders. In the 
acephalous bivalve, from a necessity given by the 
conformation, the generating process must begin and 
pass within the confines of the one animal, and we 
have the hermaphrodite gender within the jointed 



308 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

valves, as in the common plant we have both pollen 
and ovule together in a common calyx. Another ris- 
ing step is again given in the sex-forming instinct 
before there is reached full distinctive sex-organiza- 
tion. The earth-worm is hermaphrodite in a peculiar 
way; each individual is of both sexes; but instead of 
self-engendering, two together reciprocally impreg- 
nate each other. Above these, the organizing sex- 
instinct is given, which produces the kind in distinct 
male and female individuality from the origin. 

Sexual distinctions in plants are in the bud ; in 
animals, the sex is distinguished in the embryo. 
From the birth animals go out, as from the direction 
of Noah they went into the Ark, " male and female 
of every kind." And of man, the crown of animal 
being, it may be taken just as it is revealed, that God 
created him male and female by first forming the 
man, and then- forming woman from that which was 
taken out of man. Animal life is thus constituted as 
a fountain, in its respective kinds, passing out in two 
streams, of nearly equal breadth and depth of current, 
in the sexes, through successive generations, whether 
the form of generation be oviparous or viviparous. 
In lowest stages, the stock is merely prolonged by 
cuttings, or in vegetable spores and tubers ; in the 
higher stages, sexual generation propagates the stock 
in renewed life through successive individual de- 
scendants. The life runs out in the failure of the 
ancestry, but is renewed and runs persistently on, 
with ever fresh vigor, in the offspring. 



W 



sexual propagation perpetuates species. 309 

6. Sexual Propagation carries in it the Unity 
of Species. — Propagation by cuttings, or through 
stored-up protein in spores or tubers, is but a pro- 
longation of the one old stock, although reset in mul- 
tiplied separate places. The willow from the reset 
branch, the strawberry rootlet from an advanced joint, 
is yet in each case as truly the old plant growing- 
out as if there had been a growing on without sepa- 
ration. The tuber of the potato, planted through un- 
numbered series, carries out only the old stock, and 
the peculiarity of a new variety of the old stock can 
be attained only through the sexual generation of the 
seed in the potato-ball. The flowerless plants and 
the sexless protozoa multiply their parts in separate 
places, and those parts become independent wholes 
of their own ; but they are still the old produced, and 
not a new begotten. Convenience may classify the 
produced wholes as the species from the old stock, 
but rational science can find only the old repeating 
itself, and not the old renewing its kind in so many 
generated selves. 

But in sexual propagation, an instinctive want, to 
the same end as in the old stock, has gone over from 
the male, and coalesced with the congenial material 
elements supplied in the female, and in this genera- 
tion from two sexual sources a new life begins, which 
process is repeated in every begotten embryo. The 
sperm and germ from joint congenial sources become 
one organic life in the descendant. The two must 
meet, and in coalescing they make a distinct living 



310 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

organism. The pollen must penetrate and fertilize 
the pistil ; the spermatozoa must impregnate the ova- 
rium ; and in every descent from this duplex source, 
the new life-power has taken the same instinctive 
prompting to its end as was that of the parentage, 
and the original type-instinct of the progenitors runs 
down through all their posterity, and in which is a 
unity more widely comprehensive than any yet before 
reached, viz., the unity of many individual organisms 
in the ancestral type, and which is the true unity of 
species. 

The distinctive type is in the end of the peculiar 
want which is given in the organizing instinct. Each 
instinctive prompting to organize is after an origi- 
nally given pattern, or archetype, and the kinds origi- 
nally here given include all the kinds that universal 
life-power anywhere presents. Take, then, any ori- 
ginal organizing instinct, and which prompts to its 
end through sexual distinctions, and this will have its 
distinctive type in the end of the want after which it 
works, and which must constantly come out, more or 
less modified by the conditions of the case, in every 
begotten individual. The type-instinct is a constant 
which runs through and binds in one all the descend- 
ants, and amid all numbers and varieties of engen- 
dered descendants the one original type holds them 
in unity. Each individual descendant has his organic 
unity ; all the descendants of the original type, in the 
accordant progenitors, have the higher unity of 
species. 




SEXUAL PROPAGATION PERPETUATES SPECIES. 311 

The law regulating the propagation of species is 
thus found in the determined working of the inner 
specific instinct, according to its original type. In 
the individual, the organizing instinct has been in the 
interest and to the end of the individual only, and all 
the organs have been formed and placed for expedi- 
ency and convenience in the one being. The root, 
stock, and leaf have their adaptations to the one plant ; 
and the heart, lungs, and stomach, with eye, ear, and 
limb, have their teleological form and arrangement in 
reference to the one animal. And so in the sex-organ- 
ization, the instinct has worked to the end and in the 
interest of the kind, in the unity of the one species. 
The two genders are in accordant sympathy, and are 
thus congenial in that they each have their mutual 
adaptation to the propagation of the one kind. The 
normal working of sex-distinctions must, therefore, be 
in the perpetuation of the one species, in that the 
congeniality of male and female controls their engen- 
dering. Both sex-conformation and sex-inclination 
determine the propagated posterity to be of their 
own accordant type. Variable conditions in the prop- 
agation will make varieties in the descendants, but 
there will be constancy in the parental type. The 
conditions may sometimes so vary, and give so wide a 
diversity, as to make the variety hereditary ; and 
there, will be forthwith propagated a distinct breed or 
race. Races may so widely vary that cohabitation 
between them may become reciprocally repugnant, 
and the blending of races be infrequent and the off- 



312 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

spring less vigorous. The crossing of* breeds in 
which there is no repugnance will facilitate returning 
conformity with the normal type, and give a more 
healthful and prolific progeny. It may, also, in some 
cases, occur, that truly distinct species may come in 
so near accordance of type-instinct, that there may be 
a promiscuous engendering induced between their 
sexes, yet as such hybrid progeny could bring with 
them no specific type, they must ordinarily be barren; 
and if in few cases of nearest conformity of ancestral 
type, the hybrid stock perpetuate itself, it will be 
with growing tendencies to return to the normal type 
in one or the other species of the abnormal parentage. 
The specific instinct is perpetually directed to its own 
end through all occurring varieties or hybridities, and 
thus works a persistent integrity of species through 
occasional modifications, and even partial interblend- 
ings. Speculatively, descent from one original pair 
for the species would be of no importance. The unity 
of species is in the type as given by the formative 
instinct, and if one or many seeds or pairs be first cre- 
ated, those of accordant type-instinct will propagate 
together the one species. 

What has been called "natural development," or 
" law of evolution,'-' to account for the origin and per- 
petuation of species, is utterly unphilosophical, be- 
cause wholly destitute of all reason. It starts in 
experience, and never attains anything to expound 
the experience. Single activities are found branch- 
ing out into multiplied varieties, and each variety 



SEXUAL PROPAGATION PERPETUATES SPECIES. 313 

running into further changes, and what is so far found 
to bo fact is assumed everywhere to be law, that prog- 
ress is universally from the more simple to the more 
complex ; and it gives the law of evolution to be 
" from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous." Ex- 
amining still further, it finds the heterogeneous in 
progress becoming the more definite ; and then that the 
definite integrates in the concrete ; and the whole law 
of nature's evolution is from the simplest to the most 
definite and concrete forms of heterogeneous elements. 
To the question, Wliy such order of evolution? it can 
answer nothing; and only assumes to have attained a 
knowledge of force deeper than consciousness, and 
that all conversions of forces stand in the persistence 
of the one absolute force ; and of the absolute force, 
it affirms it to be unknowable, and that we cannot 
determine whether it be personal. 

Now, the attainment of species from such "natural 
development" fancies that in infinite time we may go 
back to the primitively simple and homogeneous, out 
of which all slowly-growing orders of heterogeneous, 
definite, and concrete existences have come. 

But suppose that fancy to be fact; and that we 
have come to stand face to face with that primal sim- 
ple existence, and even that we know it as absolute 
force in its homogeneity, — how are we to know any- 
thing about its development? What right have we 
to say anything about development and evolution? 
How start from this simple to go out into the more 
complex, and from this to the more definite, and from 



314 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



this to the concrete, and thence to the specific forms 
of concrete being? If we first know simple forces as 
having already in them their gravity and polarity, 
then may we know that if they are multiplied they 
must take on other forms, and these forms be more 
definite, and the definite more concrete ; the elements 
must become compound, and the compounds more co- 
hesive. The molecules must become heaps, and the 
heaps harden into rocks and mountains. But if we 
have even the primitive force in its simplicity only, 
we can say nothing of its heterogeneity, or definite- 
ness, or concretion, or any law of evolution. We have 
no envelopment, and have no logical permission to say 
anything about development. And even if we grant 
to this theory its progressive advancement from sim- 
ple forces to definite heterogeneous molecules, and 
thence to more definite and concrete heterogeneous 
rocks and mountains, these aggregated rocks and 
mountains, in all their varieties, have nothing of the 
unity of species about them. They are put together 
from the outside, and have neither organic growth 
nor genetic propagation. 

But it is here urged that nature has already its or- 
ganisms, and their genetic propagations, and that we 
may assume its original law to have been " like pro- 
ducing like," but with conditional exceptions ; and 
then the theory of " natural selection" is introduced 
to account for the origin and perpetuation of species. 
Some simple organism arose and propagated its like, 
and in varied conditions its slightly modified varieties ; 



SEXUAL PROPAGATION PERPETUATES SPECIES. 315 

and such as were competent to endure the struggle 
for existence survived, and the improving modifica- 
tions have come out progressively in surviving spe- 
cies, while myriads have been abortive, and gone 
down in annihilation without a record. In infinite 
time there has been opportunity for so originating, 
and preserving through the myriad abortions, all the 
graded species, step by step, up from the lowest to 
the highest. 

But whence came this assumed first organism, with 
its law of genetic propagation? Certainly it can be 
no development from simple force, for it controls and 
uses force spontaneously. It is more than force, and 
cannot be evolved from any mechanical agency. But, 
having assumed the primal simple organism, how ele- 
vate it through all the sub-kingdoms of organic exist- 
ence? Certainly, again, not in any evolution, for in 
the primary the simplest only is involved. Infinite 
time, if it may give varieties under conditions, can 
possibly give no elevations above what already the 
primal organism has. If the lower may be evolved 
into the higher, it may as well be in one leap as 
through the million ages. Besides the terrible waste 
in the abortive productions, even assuming there 
could be the evolving of higher organisms from lower, 
such fortuitously occurring higher organisms must 
themselves perpetually modify the circumstances in 
the battle for life, and the coming up of a successful 
new species may make the persistency of any old 
species henceforth impossible, and so successively the 



316 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

conflict of all to be desperate. What sure road 
throughout such dangers, fortuitously arising, could 
any species have for gaining its passage through the 
chaos, and coming and permanently abiding within a 
rational Cosmos ? 

But with an organizing instinct superinduced upon 
mechanical forces, and using them according to the 
specific type in the end of its own want, we have in 
sex-generation a rational, and so a philosophical, de- 
termination, for the unity and persistency of all fos- 
sil and living species, till the typical instinct itself 
be crushed or exhausted, when the species per- 
ishes. 

7. Not Sex-Instinct, but the Absolute Ideal, de- 
termines THE HIGHER UNITY OP ALL SPECIES. — The 
organizing instinct unites the separate organs in the 
individual, and through sex-propagation the individ- 
uals in the species, and with this the formative life- 
instinct terminates. Nature will not disclose within 
herself the formal determinations which unite the 
species in their genera. The creating Logos has 
been guided by the Eternal Ideas in making the 
original types for all species; and the creating Spirit 
has been guided by the Absolute Ideal in compre- 
hending all specific types of being in universal con- 
sistency and order ; and thus the gradations of 
species are to be sought only in the supernatural 
arrangement of Absolute Reason. Since creation is 
the work of Absolute Reason, and all organic unity 



I 



GRADATIONS OF SPECIES AFTER THE IDEAL MAN. 317 

has its source in Eternal wisdom, there must be a 
rational end in the introduction of all created Organ- 
isms ; and all types of being must conspire in partic- 
ular gradation towards the consummation of all in 
that end. And though this may be determined 
through many stages by unifying forces and powers 
put within nature, yet somewhere we must come 
to the link which is ultimate in nature, and has no 
higher connection through second causes, but is held 
immediately in the Creator's own hand. Even finite 
reason can never satisfy itself in classifying through 
endless categories, but must at last comprehend all 
its classifications in creative unity, which Absolute 
wisdom has conceived, and Omnipotence executed, 
and Essential Goodness adorned, as the completed 
universal work of one Supreme Being. We stop, 
then, here with the organizing power in nature, 
where the life-instinct, by sex-distinctions, has been 
arranging through all generations individual organ- 
isms in the unity of species. If further study of 
nature shall find some higher organific bond, hold- 
ing her species in more generic comprehension, all 
very well, and most gratefully to be accepted when 
validly confirmed ; but the deepest insight into na- 
ture cannot now read any natural unity in her pro- 
ductions, any further than the sexual distinctions 
send the unchanged parental types down through 
their successive generations. 

We look, then, now only to the arrangement of 
specific types by original supernatural creation, as 



318 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

indicating the Eternal Archetype after which organic 
life has been arranged, and species graded, and do 
not anticipate any natural medium here between us 
and the Creator. 

This connecting Archetype, as Eternal Ideal, will 
be clearly seen when we contemplate man as the 
consummation and crown of all terrestrial life. The 
human organism is the antitype, after which all types 
have in their gradation been fashioned ; and each 
rising step has been as if the succession were antici- 
pative, and emulous to reach and rest in the com- 
pleted human structure ; erect in stature, expressive 
in attitude, look, and movement, and holding dominion 
over every creature on the earth. Something of the 
model of the man is in all lower animal forms ; and as 
man grows up from embryonic generation, he passes 
all the inferior stages. The generic orders of uni- 
versal Animated Nature find their unit)' in the eter- 
nal Idea of Humanity. 

Each rising unity has, then, its interest and end 
within its own comprehension. Each organ has an 
instinctive want working to its own completeness 
and preservation. Each individual has every organ 
in its own interest, and the one life-want working in 
and through them for its own end. Each peculiarity 
of sex-distinction is in the interest of generating a 
new organism from the double-parentage. The mam- 
mae of a man is not for the man's interest, but its 
nerve-sympathy is wholly in the interest of the 



GRADATIONS OP SPECIES AFTER THE IDEAL MAN. 319 

double-gender. Every law of perpetuated type, and 
varied race, and determined hybridity is in the inter- 
est of the species. It is not for the good of the mule 
that the hybrid is barren, but for the two species 
between which the mule stands, making it necessary 
that all propagation shall lie back in the one ancestral 
type or the other. And so, also, when we come to 
the original creative Ideal, which puts all species in 
graded unity up to man ; it is not in man's, nor any 
lower animal species' interest, that such graded suc- 
cession obtains, but " God has given to each a body 
as it has pleased him, and to every seed his own 
body," solely in the end of his own rational behest ; 
obliging all to say, " For thy pleasure all things are, 
and were created." The teleological principle that 
all organic being shall foreshadow man, and in man's 
coming shall all be comprehended in man, is to be 
sought and found only as ending in God ; and which 
is adequately expressed only in the God-man's own 
language, " Even so, Father, because it seemed 
good in thy sight." The " good " is, that to Abso- 
lute Reason this was seen to be the most reason- 
able. So we follow up the working life-instinct, 
spontaneously constituting its ascending unities, till 
we reach ultimately the creating fiat after its Eternal 
Ideal ; and the unity of all overt real existence, in 
order and harmony here, compels all finite reason to 
recognize the Absolute Reason as essentially a Tri- 
une Creator. 



320 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

8. Organic Life terminates in Death. — It would 
not be the proper meaning of death, to recall the 
life-instiuct from an ethereal atom, and leave its 
diremptive foi'ces again to themselves ; this would 
rather be the annihilation of life, since the separated 
life-want would thus be withdrawn again to its origi- 
nal source. Nor would it be the meaning of death to 
take the living-light from matter, and then conceive 
this separated life, because it can show no organic 
embodiment, to be dead. When life is lost from a 
plant or an animal, we can only speculatively con- 
template the lost life itself as somehow existing in 
an unseen state, and not itself dead, but only invisi- 
ble. But when all living activity ceases in the body, 
and the lifeless organism begins its return to dissolu- 
tion, without asking of the departed life where it has 
gone, it is of the dissolving organism that we speak 
as dead, with no reference of such meaning to the 
life away from the organism, wherever that life may 
be supposed to have gone. The organism without 
life we speak of as death, and conceive the death as 
wholly relative to the deserted tabernacle, and not 
to the departed inhabitant. 

So, again, when the organizing instinct has ma- 
tured the organism, its subsequent activity is expend- 
ed in preserving the matured structure. Assimilation 
and dissolution are in continual succession, and the 
life-power works to perpetuate the body through this 
ceaseless flow, by introducing the new on the ex- 
clusion of the old. But here also we say, that it is 



ORGANIC LIFE ENDS IN DEATH. 321 

not the continual dying of the changing elements 
that we regard when we speak of death, but the 
arresting of the flow at once in the cessation of all 
new supplies, and the falling of all the parts together 
into decomposition and disorganization. 

And in this acceptation, organic death is to be 
viewed as terminating organic life from the very 
nature of the case. The fulness of the life-power is 
expended in maturing, and then in perpetuating ; and 
while new life is being sent on in posterity, old en- 
cumbrances and burdens augment in the ancestry, 
and vitality and recuperative energy decline, leaving 
the organism to irreparable decrepitude and decay. 
Any shock is then dangerous, and some stroke at 
length will be fatal, or the necessary supply grad- 
ually and ultimately completely fail, from the wear- 
ing out of the life-power in exhausting efforts against 
reacting material impediments, and death will neces- 
sarily ensue. 

There is nothing from this natural necessity of 
death, as seen in speculative philosophy to follow 
from the order of sexual generation, to impugn the 5 
doctrine of immortality for man as given in revela- 
tion. We may further along see how the superin- 
duction of a rational spirit upon animal life modifies 
the organizing agency, and opens the way for human 
immortality; but it is enough here to remove all 
scruple to remark, that revelation itself manifestly 
supposes that the natural course for organic life is 
its termination in death. The immortality of the 
21 



322 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



primitive man was viewed as a result from some 
special divine interference, and an exclusion of such 
interposition left man, of course, to disease and death. 
The " tree of life " was open to him in innocence as 
the source and pledge of perpetuated life, but the 
forfeiture of life by his fall, and the incurring of the 
curse of death, shut out all remedial interposition. 
What had else replenished life's waning vigor was 
now fenced out by " a flaming sword turning every 
way," lest he should " eat and live forever." 

Where generated life is, there is in its very work- 
ing the necessity for death. The very exuviae which 
life throws out carry with them some of the energy 
of life's assimilations. The remains of a once living 
plant are the more facile food for present vegetation, 
and the excrements of animal life clothe the earth 
in richer verdure. There is a change in the very 
exhalations of the living body, and a power goes out 
from the instinctive life-want which not only builds 
up organic structures, but modifies inorganic nature, 
and leaves its traces on the material world ; and this 
*outgo from working life must exhaust the vitality 
in the ancestry that the posterity may have more 
genial conditions. Natural death must come not only, 
but it is needed. It is no evil, but the death is as 
sure a good as the precedent life. The meliorations 
wrought by the living generation can come to the 
next only through previous dissolution. The species 
matures, and more elevated species originate, and 
the animal kingdom rises on the vegetable, and 



ORGANIC LIFE ENDS IN DEATH. 323 

human personality and culture crowns brute appetite, 
only as the death and dissolution of that below gives 
possibility for that which is higher. Only to this 
crown of all life, as it is in man, can death be a curse, 
and this only as a reclaiming of an imparted preroga- 
tive which his sin had forfeited. And even to him 
the curse opens into a blessing, through a gracious 
redemption and promised resurrection. 

Through all organic being, the growth and preser- 
vation of the organism is by the death and departure 
of the successive assimilated elements, and the melio- 
ration and perpetuation of the species is by the birth 
and death of its individuals. Through unmeasured 
eras before man was made, and cursed, and redeemed, 
the changes of vegetable and animal life to death, and 
the passing of the vegetable into the animal life by 
death, have been steadily moving onward, preparing 
a dwelling-place for man, and opening a theatre for his 
probationary discipline, and this quite as much by the 
dying as by the living. The Fossil Rocks and broad 
Coal Beds, and deep Petroleum Fountains, owe their 
present ministrations to human want as really to the 
subsequent taking as to the original imparting of 
life. Nature could no more have run her normal 
course in subserviency to man without the interven- 
tion of death than without the incoming of life. Her 
first seeds had in them the law of coming dissolution 
as truly as that of previous germination. 

So life flows and death ensues, and yet with the 
conservation of the essential life-power through all 



324 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



the vicissitudes of generation and dissolution. The 
young life opens fresh and vigorous, but the generat- 
ing of the new is in the exhausting of the old, and 
the more prolific the stock, the sooner the flowering 
and the earlier the fruitage, and so the more rapid the 
stream by the quickened exhausting and dissolving, 
but with no diminution of the vital essence. As one 
force flows into another, and all is still correlation and 
conservation, with nothing lost, so one life goes and 
others come, but all is but conversion from one 
material combination to another. One portion of 
matter succeeds to another in the same individual, 
and one individual to another in the same species, 
and one species runs out and another is brought in 
as the material elements ripen ; for the rational life 
must be superinduced before the individuality can 
be immortal. 



As we now have the formative life-instinct in con- 
templation, we will, in a summary manner, specula- 
tively follow its action in building up its particular 
structures in the several rising kingdoms of organic 
life, and more particularly and discriminatingly notice 
the different modes of activity which the rising grades 
of organism give occasion for exhibiting within the 
completed bodily structures of the successively ad- 
vanced kingdoms. 



LIFE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 325 



THE REIGN OF LIFE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 

The cryptogamous or flowerless plants are the 
lowest and least complete organisms which the life- 
instinct constructs, opening with unicellular forma- 
tions, which multiply by an inner growth and outer 
expulsion, rising to bodies of expanded tissues with 
fronds and thalli, and then to stems of firmer texture, 
with leaves and spores which vegetate from any part 
of their surface. All these varieties are with no dis- 
tinctions of sex, destitute of flowers and seed, and 
yet accumulate an immense amount of cellulose as 
nourishment for higher forms of living existence. 

At a more advanced stage, the life-instinct builds 
the more complex and complete organisms in the 
series of plienogamous or flowering plants with full 
distinctions of sex, and flowers and seed after their 
kind, and with the complete plant-organism of root, 
stem, and leaf. The aliment of the plant must come 
mainly from the earth, become assimilated in the 
light and air, and hence the vegetable must be on the 
general plan of striking its root in the ground, throw- 
ing up a rising stem, and spreading abroad branches 
and leaves. 

The root has the varied forms of bulbous, tuberous, 
and fibrous ; which last are elongated by adding new 
spongiole cells at their tips, and in their multiplying 
rootlets ; and in the root is often stored the pabulum 



326 



KN0WIJ2DGE OF CREATION. 



of starch, sugar, and oils for coming exigencies. The 
root also supports and holds the stem firm, in the con- 
flict of the branches and leaves with the winds. 

The stem, as longer or shorter, gives to vegetation 
the distinctions of herb, shrub, and tree. At the 
salient points of the embryo, where the life-instinct 
works downward in the root and upward in the stem, 
is the yoke which holds root and stem together, and 
through which the circulation passes, with no fixed 
centre, from root to branch, and again from leafy 
branch to the root. When the vascular tissues are 
sent down from the leaves within the pulpy pith of 
the stem, and there harden into firmer fibre, as in the 
palms, the botanic distinction of endogenous plants is 
given ; and when the tissues form the ligneous growth 
out from the stem and within the bark, as in all solid 
woods, there is the distinction of exogenous plants. 
The former have in the embryo but one rudimentary 
seed-leaf, or cotyledon, and the latter have the embryo 
enclosed between two cotyledons, and these cotyledons 
are from the life-instinct of the ancestral plant filled 
with pi-otein for the sustenance of the new plant in 
its opening germination. 

The upshoot has then its forming buds and leaves, 
and in which the formative life-work is of the highest 
interest, more specially in the exogenous class. The 
leaf is wanted for oxygenating and elaborating the 
sap sent into it, and in which assimilative process the 
appropriate elements of the air and sunlight are con- 
ditional. The leaf is an extension of the tissues of 



LIFE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 327 

the stock in the upper and lower surfaces, and these 
surfaces spread out by ribs and veins of firmer tex- 
ture. The upper surface catches the light, and the 
green-colored protoplasm proximate to it becomes the 
chlorophyll, so peculiarly distinguishing it from the 
fainter green of the lower surface. Between the 
stem and foot-stalk of the leaf is the axillary bud, as 
an embryo, which at any favoring time may grow out 
in a branch; and the stalk itself has its terminal 
bud, elongating the stem from one leal-node to an- 
other. The received sap, prepared in the leaf, goes 
down in the vascular cellulose of the branches, and 
thence in the stem, and through the yoke into the 
roots, carrying nourishment and forming in them their 
ligneous substance. The stem and branches need 
their uniform nourishment on all sides, and the life- 
instinct secures this by giving to the vascular cellu- 
lose of the forming stem and branch a spiral growth, 
that throws out the leaves and buds evenly on all 
sides, whether as relatively to each other they stand 
opposite, alternate, or verticillate, and in their regular 
supply from higher to lower keep the woody part of 
a cylindrical shape, tapering from the bottom up- 
wards, and so securing for the tree the highest 
strength and symmetry. 

And here we have a special manifestation of the 
life-instinct spontaneously using nature for its own 
ends. It facilitates this spiral formation by using the 
force of gravity in its assistance. An air-bubble, 
working up against the downward pressure through 



328 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



the water, necessarily rises in a spiral course ; and the 
forming cellulose in the growing branches has almost 
universally attained for itself this advantage. The 
terminal buds are turned upwards from horizontal or 
pendent positions, and the cellulose is made to form 
itself against gravitating pressure. The plant re- 
gards its need of light more than this advantage 
from atmospheric pressure, and for the sake of the 
sun-light will turn towards it, though it may be in the 
direction with gravity. 

That this upturned direction of all branches is in- 
stinctive for such natural assistance, has been tested 
by ingenious experiments. In Gray's Botanical Text 
Book we find the following statement : " The seeds of 
a bean-plant were made to germinate in a quantity of 
moss fastened to the circumference of a wheel, which 
was made to revolve at a rapid rate ; where the seeds 
were subjected to the centrifugal force alone, acting 
like that of gravitation, but in the opposite direction. 
On examination, after some days, the young root and 
stem were found to have taken the direction of the 
axis of rotation, the former being turned towards the 
circumference, and the latter towards the centre of 
the wheel. The same result took place when the 
wheel was made to revolve horizontally with consid- 
erable rapidity ; but when the velocity was moderate, 
the roots were directed obliquely downwards and out- 
wards, and the stem obliquely upwards and inwards, 
in obedience to the centrifugal force and the power 
of gravity acting at right angles to each other." But 



LIFE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 329 

the seeds would not regard such offered advantage 
to the attainment of a spiral vegetation against the 
higher want of light, for " when caused to germinate 
in moss so arranged that the only light they could re- 
ceive was reflected from a mirror which threw the 
solar rays upon them directly from below, in such 
case their roots were sent upwards into the moss, and 
their stems downwards towards the light." 

This instinctive spiral tendency prevails in the 
growing flower as well as in the leaves and branches. 
The cellular tissue which in the leaf-bud would be- 
come a stem with spiral leaves, in the seed-bud is 
made successively, first a whorl of sepals in a calyx, 
then of petals in a corolla, then of stamens and their 
anthers, and lastly the pistillate whorl of circling 
ovules in an ovary. The parts of the flower are but 
the transformed spirals from the leaves, and are inci. 
dent to the instinctive working of the life-want for 
its cylindrical stem and branches. And this gen- 
eral law admits of many varieties in the flowering as 
in the foliage. If we should assume the apple-blos- 
som as a normal type among flowers, having five 
sepals in a calyx, alternating with five petals in a 
corolla, and then five stamens followed by five pistils, 
all regularly alternating, the abnormal varieties would 
be a multitude, making their distinctive differences to 
appear in every portion of the floral combination. 

So the life-want reigns through all the vegetable 
kingdom ; everywhere it is exhibiting its instinctive 
working to its ends, and adapting a change of means 



330 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



in new circumstances. From its lowest unicellular 
products to its tallest oaks and cedars, and in the 
monstrous sequoise trees of California, near forty feet 
in diameter and four hundred feet in height, it is 
everywhere spontaneously and unconsciously reach- 
ing onward to its ends, and directing its assimilating 
and formative energy, by the help of nature where it 
may, and against the hinderances of nature where it 
must. If any lesion in the parts of the bodily struc- 
ture occur, it will work to repair ; if deficiencies are 
found, it will work to supply ; if obstacles are met, it 
works to remove or surmount them. In changing 
conditions, it modifies its means to its wants. It 
sends the roots or the branches in the way to its 
nourishment ; turns the leaves to the light ; and the 
tree, sheltered in the forest by its fellows, spreads its 
roots upon the surface soil, but when standing alone, 
it sends its tap-root deep in the ground to hold itself 
against the tempest. 

But it has no other agency than in spontaneously 
constructing. It comes to no consciousness in the 
body it inhabits, and builds up its cellulose that other 
and higher organisms may enjoy it. Vegetable life is 
not for itself, and only as an instinctive worker from 
the mineral, that the sentient may afterwards appro- 
priate and enjoy. Its whole activity is in forming 
and maintaining its organism ; but it has no capacity 
to use its organism, or live in it, for its own interests. 
There is neither loco-motion nor conscious mental 
action. 



SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 331 



THE REIGN OF SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 

Vegetable life absorbs carbon, and sends off its ex- 
cess of oxygen, and prepares an atmosphere, and 
secures in itself the aliment for higher organic exist- 
ences. The occasion is the need for a more elevated 
formative instinct, which may take the cellulose of the 
plant and combine it anew into the nerve, and muscle, 
and bone of the animal. Plant life has simply instinc- 
tive craving, and an agency solely in the direction of 
its longing, and only builds up its organism and re- 
pairs its waste, with nothing further to work for. 
But animal-life is essentially nerve-irritability, with 
a central organ to which the irritability comes, and 
from which a complementary irritability departs, and 
in which is the source of self-feeling and self-finding, 
and therein the capacity for recognizing its own want 
and directing its own agency. This conscious sensa- 
tion is wholly another reign than plant-instinct, and 
introduces altogether a new and more elevated king- 
dom. When the instinct has constructed the organ- 
ism, the sense lives and acts in it for the ends of its 
own gratification. 

The animal organism is the product of an uncon- / 

scious agency, as truly as in the vegetable kingdom 
is the production of plants and trees ; but the forma- 
tive instinct here works to another and further end, 
that it may raise up a structure in which sentient 



332 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



life may have its dwelling-place, and the members of 
which the sense may use in subserviency to its own 
happiness ; and yet, until the organism is thus in- 
stinctively constituted, the animal reign of sentient 
irritability cannot begin. As the mineral could not 
develop itself to the vegetable, since mechanical 
forces have within them no spontaneity, so the 
vegetable cannot develop to the animal, since in the 
vegetable is no sentient irritability. It might, per- 
haps, even in theologic consistency, be urged that 
divine wisdom and power would equally be mani- 
fested by an original endowment of the life-want to 
rise, on occasion, to an instinctive animal construc- 
tion, as they have been by a new creation of the 
higher life-want when the occasion came. But in- 
asmuch as the organizing instinct in the animal econ- 
omy carries plant-cellulose to nervous irritability, 
there must be a power given to it which the plant- 
instinct has not; and then, in the nervous system, 
this power is to be a sentient agency and a conscious 
user of the organism ; and in both respects it is made 
manifest that animal-life cannot be evolved from plant- 
life. The consideration of the period in creating is 
of no speculative importance ; and it may as well be 
supposed that ethereal atoms had their nerve-want 
superinduced when others had their plant-want, as 
that the former was posterior to the latter ; and then 
each works in assimilating and organizing after its 
own kind, as the. conditions of their respective com- 
binations are given. The animal instinct must wait 



SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 333 

upon the vegetable, for the animal cannot be directly 
constructed from the mineral ; but the lower organisms 
of each may have no long period between ; and the 
animal forms, as meliorating conditions open, will 
rise in completeness of nerve-irritability, and muscu- 
lar excitement, and conscious sensation, and directed 
loco-motion, to their higher gradations. 

The distinctive sentient organization is essentially 
in the irritability of the nervous system, and the whole 
bodily structure, with its varied organs and members, 
is determined in consistency with the Dervous arrange- 
ment. The centres of nervous irritability are the 
ganglionic portions. 

A ganglion is an ash-gray mass of unequal cells, 
irregularly rounded in their single outlines, and im- 
bedded in a granular matter which fills the intei'- 
spaces. Filaments of a dull white color extend out 
from the gray ganglia, and constitute the fibrous 
tissue of the nervous system. The filamentary often 
interfuse or envelop the ganglionic portions, and the 
fibres go off from the ganglia in bundles to their com- 
municating parts of the body. The bundles divide, 
branch off, and inosculate with other bundles in their 
course, but the single fibre maintains its own con- 
tinuity throughout. They are of two kinds, and sub- 
serve two purposes ; one bringing communications 
to the ganglion, and is an afferent nerve, -the other 
carrying an executive communication from the gangli- 
on, and is an efferent nerve. The ganglia have broader 
tissues of connection also, and which are known as 
commissures, and through which the system has ac- 



334 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



cordant sympathy and activity. This nervous ar- 
rangement has its stages from incipiency to maturity. 
Close upon the primitive vegetable algce, and diato- 
macea, come the protozoa and infusorial animalcu- 
Ice; and as vegetation rises from unicellular form to 
complete root, stem, and leafy branches, so the animal 
forms rise in gradation through all the sub-kingdoms. 

The lowest subdivision of the animal kingdom, in 
its higher forms of sentient life, has five ganglia en- 
circling a mouth, and connected, by their commis- 
sures, with afferent or sensor nerve, and efferent or 
motor nerve ; and the whole division is known as 
Badiata, with its protozoa sexless, and senseless ex- 
cept in touch and taste. Then come the Mollusca of 
higher nervous organization, just touching the point 
of possession for all the special senses with the most 
advanced species, aud yet the best only slightly awake 
to sentient consciousness. The Articulata rise to a' 
symmetrical arrangement of ganglia in a mid-line of 
the body, and side-branches for moving members on 
each side ; and then we come to the complete animal 
structure in the Vertebrata, with its classes of Fish, 
Reptile, Fowl, and Mammifer. Here, at last, is the 
Brain with cerebrum and cerebellum, at the head of 
the spinal cord of anterior and posterior portions, and 
the sensor and motor nerves in their connections with 
the surface to the limbs, and the special sense-organs. 
Connected with these, through the sensorium, are the 
sympathetic and pneumogastric nerves for controlling 
digestion, circulation, and respiration. As there is 
more or less air in the lungs, blood in the heart, or 



SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 335 

food in the stomach, so respiration, pulsation, secre- 
tion, and peristaltic motion, are quickened or retarded. 

Here is the full arrangement for stimulating and 
directing nervous irritability; and the method of 
movement is always direct at first in the afferent, 
and then reflex in the efferent nerves. Not only is 
the building up of the nervous system instinctive, 
but very much of the nervous action in the organism 
is wholly in unconsciousness. Digestion, circulation, 
secretion, in their healthy action, are all below con- 
sciousness, and wholly involuntary ; and though we 
may, temporarily, repress respiration, and become 
conscious of partial control of our breath, yet soon 
the instinctive impulse will control and force down 
all factitious resolution. Even the special senses 
often guide the action in the absence of all conscious 
recognition. Habitual movements, activity in rev- 
erie, and the strange and sometimes dangerous feats 
of somnambulism, are all guided by sense-impressions, 
though destitute of conscious volition. The vege- 
table-instinct is mere spontaneous want, ever going 
out and not back. The sense-instinct has nerve 
irritability, working direct and reflex in its organ- 
ism in mere spontaneous activity, leaving no recog- 
nized traces in the ganglionic centres. Much of ani- 
mated activity is merely sense-instinct. 

Rising from simpler to more complex nerve-organ- 
isms, we have ganglionic centres held in connection 
by their commissures, and the whole acting in con- 
cert : and then we find one ganglion as an organic 
centre regulating all its subservient ganglia, and 



• 



336 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

each organic centre supervising others, and there- 
by enabling one sense to correct others ; and in the 
highest sub-kingdom of the vertebrates, and its high- 
est class of mammals, we have the perfection of sense- 
regulation in a central sensorium, and in this a central 
coordinating ganglion, that may recognize and regu- 
late all nerve-irritability which comes within the 
general sensorium, and give a unity of conscious 
intelligence and sentient agency to the individual. 
The spinal cord sends its fibres in striated lines up 
through all the cerebral portion; here, again, are the 
two hemispheres of the cerebrum with their gangli- 
onic convolutions, and the cerebellum with its gangli- 
onic envelope ; and then, in the most central position 
possible for spinal cord, cerebrum, and cerebellum, 
is a distinct ganglion known as that of the tuber- 
annulare, which experiment has shown is the co- 
ordinating ganglion of all ganglia. Other portions 
of the brain may be disturbed or removed in some 
animals, especially some birds, and life still continue, 
but with deranged sentient activity according to the 
respective point of injury ; but if the tuber-annulare 
be undisturbed, sensation, and motion, and directing 
judgment, may recover from the shock of amputation 
to their normal activity ; yet when this ganglion is 
broken up, and the rest of the brain left uninjured, the 
vital functions may a while instinctively operate, but 
consciousness and voluntary motion cease from all man- 
ifestation, and every sentient function is paralyzed. 

We may thus speculatively determine the mode of 
sentient consciousness, and all animal intelligence. 



SENSE IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 337 

The nervous organism gives occasion for central 
direct and reflex irritability; one centre can have 
its communion with others in the common esensorium; 
and one coordinating centre is occasion for supervis- 
ing, and distinguishing, and in this consciously recog- 
nizing, every impression which is made on the sen- 
sorium. The life-instinct in one part of the organism 
catches its own agency in another part, and as feeling- 
reciprocates feeling in the common sensoriura, so in 
the coordinating centre the life-instinct wakes in sen- 
tiency, and comes to conscious recognition of nerve- 
irritation. 

Full provision is here for all sense-affections, and 
capability to distinguish and define them and bring 
them within conscious apprehension. Instinct at once 
guides itself by sense, as a deeper instinct had guided 
in forming the nerve-organism ; and experience soon 
begins learning how phenomena are grouped and how 
they succeed each other, and therein a judgment ac- 
cording to sense opens. The brute retains, and asso- 
ciates according to retained experience ; and the parts 
of the groups and successions, that have been invari- 
ably together are the predicates of which the group 
or the series is the subject. Experience finds agree- 
able and disagreeable sensations, and from this all 
animal appetites and desires awaken. These prompt to 
executive movement in gratifying or in shunning, and 
a brute-will, ever as highest happiness dictates, is 
called up in exercise. Comparison and contrast, asso- 
ciation and abstraction, analysis and combination, can 
22 



338 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



all go as far as sense has preceded, and the brnte 
makes his inductions and conclusions according to his 
experience. Some species of animals have extraor- 
dinary practical sagacity. A fox, about two thirds 
grown, was so chained as to permit his descent to 
the bottom of a burrow made for him. The fowls 
were picking up the corn which dropped from the 
cart on its unloading, when an ear of corn tumbled 
from the basket and fell within his reach. He sud- 
denly caught and carried it within his burrow. Awa- 
kened curiosity led the men to watch what a fox 
might do with corn. He was seen to nibble off a few 
kernels at the mouth of his hole, and returning the 
ear, he stealthily lay back in concealment. But no 
sooner did the chicken pick his corn than the fox 
picked the chicken, and to save the poultry they were 
forced to uncover the burrow and take the ear of 
corn away. This case, among other instances of brute 
intelligence scarcely less striking, has in it abstrac- 
tion, and generalization, and logical conclusion from 
sense-data, followed by executive action with design, 
in the end of motive, as completely as in the adapta- 
tion of means in human economy. But the judgment, 
is wholly within sense-experience. It is conclusion 
from former observation of the order of occurring 
facts, but with no insight of reason which catches 
the connecting bond that holds the facts necessarily 
together. Uniformity of experience induces conclu- 
sion and designed action, but there is no attainment 
of a universal principle determining the order of ex- 
perience, nor of a moral imperative which must con- 



REASON IN HUMANITY". 339 

trol appetitive indulgence. The cunning fox can 
inductively philosophize as really as the man, but he 
cannot get truth beyond sense and speculatively phi- 
losophize. All arises in organized nerve-irritability, 
and all vanishes when the nerve-organism is dissolved. 

THE REIGN OF REASON IN HUMANITY. 

The vegetable kingdom is ruled by the mere life- 
instinct, the animal kingdom is ruled by conscious 
sensation, but its highest intelligence rests in what 
has appeared in experience. There is nothing to rise 
above experience and comprehend the universe, much 
less to recognize the God of the universe as absolute 
Creator and Governor. What we have in these two 
kingdoms of organic existence must be a preparation 
only for something further. Sentient being has in it 
no rights of sovereignty, and rules only by the neces- 
sities of nature as already constituted. Its sensibility 
is made for it, and the means for pleasure or pain 
are put about it, and the process to its highest happi- 
ness is a fixed destiny within it, and there is no alter- 
native in the case, but the sense-activity must put 
itself through the course which opens before it. In 
attaining its end of enjoyment in the highest practi- 
cable degree, it knows only a perpetual subserviency 
to the fixed relations of nature which determine for it 
how only it may be happy, with no known rights by 
which he may in personality govern himself and attain 
conscious dignity and self-respect. 

It is as clear that the intrinsic excellency which in- 



340 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



spires dignity and demands respect is not in sense, 
and can never be a development of it, as it was that 
life was not in force, and could never come out of it. 
Sense only prompts to conscious action through de- 
sire, and its highest good is gratified appetite, and it 
is not thus possible that the good of satisfying an im- 
perative should come in to its experience. There is 
nothing in it that can make anything due to it, and 
hence we can say nothing of duty about it. It can 
assert no rights and feel no claims. That it should 
come to conscious dignity and self-respect, it must 
have that which has intrinsic excellence superinduced 
upon it. In no other possible way can the animal rise 
to conscious sovereignty over its own agency than by 
an endowment of reason. In the light of reason he 
can then say when he ought to be happy, and when 
he ought to suffer. But from no quarter can this en- 
dowment come except from the creative source in the 
Absolute. It has been expressed in every kingdom, 
mineral, vegetable, and animal; but in neither has 
it been a conscious possession, and thus in neither has 
there been anything which might wear the crown or 
hold the sceptre of sovereign authority. So far as 
we have yet contemplated it, the created universe 
has nothing in it which may rule itself, or rule others 
in its own right, and can stand only amid the necessi- 
tated connections of nature. 

There must here be done just what revelation de- 
clares man's Creator did — give to him a living soul 
in a peculiar vfay, distinguishing bis life from the 
merely sentient animal life. As he did not to the ani- 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 341 

mal, God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and 
this breathing his living soul into him made him a 
spiritual intelligence distinct from all brute-percep- 
tion. "There is a spirit in man, and the inspira- 
tion of the Almighty givcth them understanding." 
(Jobxxxii. 8.) Both plant and animal live as organiz- 
ing instinct, and the animal life has conscious sentien- 
cy ; but only in the supernatural inspiration of reason 
is man elevated to the prerogatives and responsibili- 
ties of spiritual life and action. The sentient soul of 
Adam took within itself also the rational spirit which 
God's inspiration superinduced, and in this super- 
natural endowment man stands above nature in the 
likeness of the Deity. Instinctive life and sentient 
soul belong to nature, but rational spirit crowns na- 
ture, and of right takes dominion over it. 

As creative origination in an outer expression, there 
is nothing peculiar in this divine endowment of man 
with reason to distinguish it from other creative acts, 
except as it is an impartation of the Divine Image. 
Material and ethereal forces originate in God, and are 
put out from him in overt expression by his immedi- 
ate creative act, but they are not in, his likeness. 
God is not force, neither antagonist nor diremptive, 
though he is the direct Maker of tiiem both. And so 
both instinctive and sentient life find their origina- 
tion in outer expression direct from the Creator's 
hand, but they bring with them no likeness to him, for 
God is neither instinctive want nor sentient prompt- 
ing. And so, in the same way of direct production 
and expression, the rationality of man is immediately 



342 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

from God's creative agency, and is his product in 
man as truly as force in nature, and life in plants, 
and sense in animals ; but here the created product 
comes, bearing the very image and superscription of 
the Creator. The finite rational spirit is not God, 
but as really an outer created expression .from God as 
force, or life, or sense ; only that the former is like, 
while the latter are unlike, the Maker. The manifest- 
ing in outer expression is the creating work, and this 
is alike to be contemplated in all creative acts as 
originating in God. 

This supernatural endowment of sentient life with 
reason is an impartation from God of a self-intelligent 
and self-determining essence, which, as superinduced 
upon life and sense, is competent to use them in its 
own ends and purposes. The formative instinct is 
made unconsciously to do the work of reason in the 
organization of the human body, making it to comport 
with the dignity and designs of the human spirit. 
Where reason is, instinct and sense both act under 
higher control and for further ends than the mei'e 
organism, or than the sense-gratification. When, in 
the absence of reason, the sentient life-instinct con- 
structed the nervous arrangement of central ganglion 
and communicating filaments, and in the nerve-irrita- 
bility controlled the unconscious sense-instinct, and 
then through the coordinating sensorium managed 
the special senses in conscious direction to the ends 
of sense-gratification, it did nothing that reached be- 
yond the ends of the organism itself and its appeti- 
tive indulgence, and was held wholly subservient to 







REASON IN HUMANITY. 343 

mere organic preservation and enjoyment; but the 
rational spirit knows what is due to its own dignity, 
and works for the ends of self-approbation and the 
respect of others. When the organism dissolves, 
sense vanishes; and even while the nerve-organism 
lasts, the elementary composition and conscious ac- 
tivities are perpetually passing and recurring, and 
so both sense-existence and sense-experience are a 
continual flow of appearance and disappearance, with 
nothing steadfast. Such fleeting show cannot com- 
port with nor satisfy the intrinsic dignity of the abid- 
ing spirit. Animal life merely both may and must 
exist as fleeting, renewing wasted forces and de- 
parted indulgences that can remain for no two mo- 
ments the same ; but the life of reason should and 
must be abiding in principle and purpose. When 
superinduced upon the life-instinct, it infuses its 
energy through the living ethereal forces it inhabits, 
and makes them to be for it an abiding tabernacle as 
a " spiritual body ; " and when superinduced upon 
sense, it fixes the material forces in which sense 
resides in balanced and unchanging combination, and 
the perpetuated sentiency becomes a perduring soul 
in a changeless soul-body. For all the ends of sus- 
tenance and growth, and organic perception, and 
reproduction, the flowing assimilated forces, which 
come on and pass off from this perduring basis as 
the soul-body, supply every need; while constantly 
the rational spirit in its spiritual body holds both its 
own ethereal forces steadfast, and reaches over the 
material forces of the soul-body, holding them stable, 



344 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

and keeping both spirit-body and soul-body in firm 
alliance. The spirit-essence in the spiritual body is, 
in human life, never " unclothed," but " clothed upon " 
by the material soul-body. 

This alliance of soul and spirit constitutes Humanity. 
However in other worlds spirit may be " clothed 
upon " in corporeal existence, in this our world it is 
by superinducing reason upon sense, and the reason 
in its body of ethereal forces incarnates the spiritual 
in the material basis of all sentient life as soul-body ; 
and such union of soul in soul-body and spirit in 
spirit-body constitutes the human being, man. Not 
sentient soul and rational spirit incorporeal constitute 
man ; for except as abiding in substantial force, either 
ethereal or material, neither spirit nor soul can have 
expression away from their creative source ; but 
spirit in ethereal and soul in material corporeity 
constitute humanity, and the two combined in one 
by the energy of the reason which presides over 
both. While the conscious disposing of the spirit 
in voluntary execution of its end in life is a moral 
power, standing in its own responsibility, the in- 
stinctive, unconscious agency which carries on the 
vital functions is involuntary and irresponsible, though 
spontaneously guided by reason. 

In the sphere of instinctive working, the reason in 
the human spontaneously makes many new modifica- 
tions and arrangements for its own ends and uses, 
which mere animal sense does not want, and which 
brute consciousness could not use. Organs of speech 
are fashioned in flexibility for sounds, and in facility 



REASON IN HUMANITY. 345 

for tones, expressive of thought and sentiment in 
man, wherein no brute participates, and for which 
animal life can find no occasion for utterance. The 
human hand is formed in the interest of reason, un- 
like the corresponding member for brute instrumen- 
tality, readily becoming skilled to work the ideals of 
human invention on to solid matter, whether of the 
useful or beautiful creations of genius. The erect 
stature is given man, whereby he attains and holds 
dominion over the animal kingdom, subduing nature, 
cultivating the ground, and distributing ihe produc- 
tions for universal consumption. And yet more won- 
derfully, this spontaneity of reason works its own 
stability out in expression on the human organism 
in its erect stature, self-poised attitude, symmetrical 
figure, and its authority on the open brow, and the 
light of its own majesty shining in every feature. 
The inner spirit uses the ethereal forces of its spirit- 
ual body, spontaneously, in building up the tabernacle 
for the sentient soul, that itself may control and use 
the sentient life for higher purposes than any animal 
consciousness can recognize. Such infusion of the ra- 
tional spirit in its spiritual body everywhere through 
the sentient soul in its soul-body, and this in the in- 
stinctive construction of the human organism for ra- 
tional action and moral probation, makes a peculiar be- 
ing, so far as we know from observation or revelation 
unlike any other, and is the distinctively human, which 
the Absolute Reason knew it behooved him to create. 
This comprehending bond of the spiritual holding 
all the sentient within it determines human Individu- 



346 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



ality. As before seen, that which the insight of rea- 
son detects running through the manifold, and shut- 
ting them together in one, individualizes the many, 
making of them an indivisible single, inclusive of 
itself and exclusive of all else. So with the force of 
chemical combination in the mineral kingdom, the 
life-instinct in the vegetable kingdom, and the senti- 
ent irritability in the animal kingdom. In each the 
individuals are determined by their peculiar bond 
which runs through and holds the manifold in a 
single. And here this infused bond of the spiritual 
through all the sensual determines an individuality 
of its own exclusively. The inbreathed spirit from 
God in Adam held at once the substantial ethereal 
and material forces of both spirit- and soul-bodies in 
one, and had control of all sentient appetite in execu- 
tive gratification, and in this began an experience 
and a history of his own; one and single, distinct 
both from his Maker and any other creature. Put 
by God's inspiration into sense, and holding that 
sense in comprehension, it became the individual 
Adam, inclusive of himself as sense and spirit, and 
exclusive of all other. Subject still to God, and re- 
sponsible to God, Adam was sole individuality in 
himself; originating his own action in the disposing 
of his own spirit, and using his own sense, so that the 
acts were Adam's acts, and neither the acts of the 
Creator nor any other creature. That rational spirit, 
put within and infused through that sentient soul con- 
stituted the first human individual, shutting his own 
in, and shutting all other individuality out. 



REASON IN HUMANITY. 347 

And not only was Adam so made by God at first 
in his one inclusive and exclusive individuality, but 
every descendant in sexual generation has rational 
spirit diffused through and binding its own sense in 
unity, making an individuality of its own, distinct 
from God, and Adam, and every other descendant. 
All have humanity as soul and spirit, but each its indi- 
viduality as such a soul held in its own spirit ; and so 
Adam's posterity stand out in human Individuality. 

The same substantial forces, held together by tbe 
spirit, determine human Identity. The river is the 
same only as new waters flow on in the same way 
and the same place. The tree is the same, from 
germination to maturity, only as new particles have 
been assimilated in constant succession by the per- 
petually working life-instinct. When the life goes 
out in plant or animal, the identity is lost. But in 
the human individual there is the spirit holding in 
unity the same living ethereal forces as the spiritual 
body, and the same material forces as the permanent 
basis of the organic elements which come and go in 
the earthy body, and which permanent is the un- 
changing soul-body ; and this spiritual holding in 
unity the same spirit-body and the same soul-body, 
gives an identity to the human which can be deter- 
mined for no other individuality. It holds on the 
same through all vicissitudes of the mortal state, and 
will still perdure when all sense-aflections and sex- 
distinctions shall have passed away. 

The rational spirit secures for the sentient soul in 
the soul-body assured Immortality. The auimal iu- 



348 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



dividuality is determined in the continual life-instinct 
working its new assimilations and old eliminations 
through the changing body ; this life-instinct con- 
stantly holding its organic construction in form and 
measure about itself, and retaining and expressing 
its irritability and conscious sensibility through each 
successive moment. The living bond determines the 
individuality, and the continued form, though made 
of perpetually passing elements, is the animal iden- 
tity. And man, so far as animal only, has only the 
individuality of being held together by the one work- 
ing life-instinct, and the identity of perpetuated or- 
ganic form and proportion, through his successive 
development. So with his whole organism of sense- 
nutrition and sex-distinction, which are " of the earth, 
earthy," and dissoluble as the brute individuality and 
identity. As above stated, the exhausting life-action 
and nature's melioration for higher existences de- 
mand dissolution as earnestly as the previous con- 
struction. When the organism has reached its end, 
the animality has finished its work, and in the certain 
dissolution the same sentient individual exists no more. 
But man has rational spirit superinduced upon the 
life-instinct and conscious sensation, and this spirit 
has been set to its fleshly abode that it may control 
sense and hold every appetite subservient to spirit- 
ual dignity and integrity ; and when having thus 
gained dominion over sense, there comes at length 
the claim of freedom from the perpetual warfare ; or 
if having given up to carnal indulgence, there comes 
the equally resistless claim that it meet its deserved 



REASON IN HUMANITY. 349 

shame and reproach for its sensuality. In either 
case, sentient soul and rational spirit have been in 
communion in the period of probation, and they must 
stand together, from the reason of the case, in the 
coming retributions. The individual spirit can be 
known only as the permanent dweller in the body 
of ethereal forces, and the individual sentient soul 
can be known only in its body of material forces, and 
so the spirit has held steadfast its spiritual body, and 
infused through the sentient soul it has also held the 
soul-body steadfast in its balanced material forces. 
However the earthy animal organism may change or 
dissolve, its material basis of substantial forces abides 
for the soul, and is held identically the same forever. 
The soul-body may cast off all its earthy trappings in 
animal death, and may be separated from the spirit- 
body in human death, but the soul-body itself cannot 
lose either its individuality or identity. The spirit 
in the spirit-body demands its reunion, and it must be 
kept in its integrity. That spirit-body is " a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," and the 
" earnest desire of the soul to be clothed upon with 
the house which is from heaven " must be gratified. 
The spirit-body is the sole medium for the spirit's 
distinction from, or its communion with, God, the 
Father of all spirits, and that it has been linked with 
sold, and soul-body, and fixed its permanent disposi- 
tion and character in that connection, fixes also the 
certainty of their eternal communion in the world 
that follows all probation. 

This pervading of sense by rational spirit deter- 



350 



KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 



mines human Personality. Personality in God is 
independent of all conditions from nature ; personal- 
ity in angelic spirits has its connections in an un- 
known nature ; our natural world has no personality ; 
man alone has personality conditioned in known nat- 
ural connections. Material nature has the necessitat- 
ed connections of mechanical force ; vegetable nature 
has the spontaneity of instinctive want, but no alter- 
native in consciousness ; animal nature has conscious 
appetite, but no alternative to a movement towards 
what it deems highest gratification ; and so below 
man there are only things governed by the necessary 
connections in nature above them, and no persons 
obedient to a voice within in spite of all without. 

Man, in so far forth as he is merely sentient, is 
animal, with animal appetites, and subject to act un- 
der the condition of finding no alternative to the 
execution of the strongest propensity. But the sen- 
tient is one side only of the human ; man is rational 
spirit as well as sentient soul, and the human is 
essentially and peculiarly this union of sense and 
spirit. We know but only the lower half of man, and 
that which is wholly within nature, when we deem 
him the mere agent for attaining his highest happi- 
ness. The better half of man is his reason, which is 
agency for attaining highest dignity. Reason is it- 
self spiritual, supernatural, competent to stand against 
force, and instinctive want, and sentient appetite, and 
hold solely and persistently to its own conscious rea- 
sonableness. Reason knows itself; its own intrinsic 
excellency ; and thus what is due to itself for its own 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 351 

sake, aside from any appetite. Nature's forces, or 
instincts, or appetites may urge in any direction, and 
with any strength, but the spirit may refuse all com- 
pliance, on the sole consideration that its own integ- 
rity is lost by yielding. Man, endowed with reason 
above nature, may look nature through within him- 
self and without, and aside from all adaptations to 
want and appetite, he may see what the reason-idea, 
or principle, in nature is, and without which nature 
itself could not so have been. Among these Eternal 
Ideas and immutable principles, he may discriminate 
such as control in their particular sphere, and take 
.such as an ultimate standard each in its respective 
sphere, and then may explore and comprehend that 
sphere in the light of that principle which determines 
it. So far as such contemplation extends, he will 
know that whole sphere, not merely as in sense it 
appears, but in the reason of the case why it should 
and must so appear. And in every such sphere he 
may stand by the eternal principle he attains, and 
maintain his own integrity and fidelity to it in spite 
of any opposing force, or want, or appetite. He can 
free himself against all promptings of nature in such 
sphere,by holding to the determinate and eternal truths 
of such sphere. In all such positions he has spiritual 
freedom, and can do as no animal can — overcome na- 
ture, and stand on the dignity and honor of his reason 
alone. In this, man is Person ; other than a thing ; and 
at once he is open to claims and responsibilities which 
the presence of no force, or want, or appetite can annul. 
As rational Intelligence in any or all of these dis- 



352 



KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 



tinct spheres, the man, as person, is Philosopher ; and 
as Actor in the light of the truths in any or all of 
these distinct spheres, he is free Agent ; and in the 
more prominent and important of these spheres we 
may contemplate him as Philosopher and free Agent 
both in one. We stand here wholly beyond all ani- 
mal experience, and in a region, where Sense-knowing 
and Sense-acting are utterly irrelevant and imperti- 
nent ; and a very short consideration of man, in these 
respective spheres, will make conspicuous the pre- 
rogatives and responsibilities which put him above all 
we have yet speculatively known of creation, and 
make him to be truly the crowning work of the 
Creator's hand. 

That may be known as Science which gathers and 
classifies facts as they appear in experience ; but in 
this there is nothing of the insight and control of rea- 
son, and hence nothing of Philosophy, nor of free 
Responsibility. 

Sense-experience may learn what appearances 
please the eye, or what sounds please the ear ; and 
by careful study and trial man may attain the skill to 
imitate nature by finding and applying practical 
rules for copying nature, and so far he might know 
how to give forms or tones which will be generally 
pleasing. But in this way there can be gained noth- 
ing of the philosophy or of the freedom which belongs 
to the Fine Arts. The reason can at once see in the 
forms of nature the living sentiment they express, 
and in what blended forms the blended sentiment de- 
sired may be most perfectly and fully expressed ; and 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 353 

such forms give the standard for beauty, or sublimity, 
and become a universal guide for taste in admiring, 
criticising, or executing in Art. In this way only 
can one be artist in his free personality. As follow- 
ing the agreeable in sense and copying nature by it, 
he is bound solely by the fact of constitutional sensi- 
bility and the tried forms presented to it, and he c&n 
say only what does please, while the reason may say 
what should please both him and all others. In the 
insight of reason the true artist may dispute all tastes 
but that which stands conformed to the Absolute 
Standard. He may freely guide his action, and make 
his selection, or set himself to the execution, in a 
work of art, by the reason's ideal, and refuse all ap- 
peals to any sensibility which would vitiate the taste, 
or debase the reason in repudiating the pure Ideal. 

So, also, in Geometry and Mechanics, the reason 
sees in the pure diagrams or motions the truths of 
which they are the symbol, and ma) T not only, like the 
sense, say so nature does appear ; but from its own 
insight may know, what no sense can, that in the 
diagrams projected such forces nature must use ; and 
in the forces nature uses, such diagrams her move- 
ments must make ; and so the man reads the meaning 
of the Maker in both the Earth and Heavens. And 
here, too, the Philosopher can free himself from any 
demands the sense-appearance may impose, and hold 
to reason's claim, refusing all abatement or perver- 
sion, though he die for it. 

Still more specially, by the endowment of reason 
23 



354 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

man rises into the pure region of an immutable and 
free Morality. Animal happiness is the gratification 
of an animal sensibility, and this is the end of all 
sense, that the highest practicable, gratification be 
secured. The sensibility is the highest endowment 
the animal has, and its gratification is the highest 
good. The sensibility is a thing made, and the law 
of highest Happiness is found in knowing how the 
sensibility is constituted, and then avoiding what 
pains, and attaining and applying what pleases it. 
There can thus be no immutable rule ; for a sensi- 
bility can be variedly constituted, and the rule must 
be as the constituted fact is found. And even if all 
sensibilities were found alike, this could not give 
an ultimate rule ; for we could thence only know that 
the Maker was most pleased to so constitute all sen- 
sibilities, and the last fact thus gained would be, that 
the Maker finds he himself has such a sensibility that 
he must so make other sensibilities, or be unhappy. 
The last we here find is still a fact with no reason 
for it. We have, in the Maker of all other sensibili- 
ties, a constit\itional sensibility with no rule to de- 
termine it. 

Still further, a sensibility can only crave, and, never 
claim. It may ask favors, but can never demand 
dues. Its highest end is gratification, and it can 
never attain to approbation. Hence the possession of 
a conscience is impossible to a sensibility. Its short- 
comings are losses of happiness only, and hence to it 
occasions for regret, but never losses of respect, and 
hence can never give compunctions for guilt. No 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 355 

possible elevation of a rule for sense can rise above 
prudence, and can never attain to an imperative. A 
sensibility cannot feel obligation in itself, nor can 
reason see in it any rights. Out of a sensibility it is 
impossible that there should, in any way, be derived 
a morality. 

But an endowment of rationality is another and 
much more exalted good than being constituted with 
a sensibility. Here is an intrinsic excellency with 
conferred dignity ; the highest which the Maker can 
give or the creature receive ; even the very image 
and likeness of the Creator. 

Sensibility has no intrinsic excellency, and so no 
dignity, and is merely a utility ; an instrumental 
means to a further end, and worthless except in 
reference to that end beyond itself. But to know that 
reason has been superinduced upon sense is at the 
same time to know that the reason should rule and 
the sense should serve ; and also at once in this is 
seen, that gratified sense may often be forbidden, and 
that all happiness must be reasonable or it must be re- 
jected. And the present denial of gratifying sensibili- 
ty is not at all that the sensibility may be made happi- 
er at some future time, but that reason may now and 
ever be honored. It can never be morality to say, 
" I do this that I may be happy ; " but only to say, 
" I do this that I may be worthy." 

Nor is this at all open to an inconsiderate objection 
that such ground of Morality involves the absurdity 
of making " the highest good of man to consist in his 
choosing as an ultimate end his own choice of an 



356 KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. 

ultimate end." (President Hopkins's Lectures on 
Moral Science, p. 57.) There are distinctions of 
worthiness, and thus of good, in all consideration of 
Morality, and no statement should be permitted to 
confound them. To be endowed with reason is a 
dignity and a good ; and so also to conform to reason 
is a dignity and a good ; one an imparted and the 
other an attained worthiness and good. When the 
man goes back for his ultimate rule, he sees the im- 
parted worthiness and good ; and when he turns 
forward to an ultimate end, he looks at an attained 
worthiness and good ; and he chooses in both cases, 
and with no absurdity in so doing, for the choices are 
as distinct as the worthiness and the good in the two 
cases. The former he chooses as rule, and by adopt- 
ing makes it his maxim for life ; the latter he chooses 
as end, and by conformity establishes integrity of 
character. Both are ultimate ; the former in the 
direction of origin, the latter in the direction of con- 
summation ; and both are intrinsic, as thoroughly in 
the very reason of the case ; and yet they are in 
themselves so inherently distinct that they cannot 
become identical, and if logically confounded they 
confound the logic. Both these forms of worthiness 
are good in the estimate of reason, and therein wholly 
different from all good in the estimate of sensation ; 
and the proper discrimination is kept when we say 
of the two former, their good is that of worthiness, 
and of all forms of the latter, their good is that of 
happiness, for no possible happiness could compensate 
for the loss of either distinction of worthiness. The 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 357 

endowed worthiness must be in order that the attained 
worthiness may be, but the possession of each is 
invaluable compared with anything else in earth or 
heaven ; and if the endowment be, then must the 
attainment be, or " it had been good for that man if 
he had not been born." 

The affections in the sensibility and those in the 
reason may both be known as feeling ; but though they 
receive the samo name, they are themselves essential- 
ly unlike. The sensibility is a constituted thing, and 
has its constitutional nature, and hence all its feelings 
are as the constitution is made to be. In many things 
it differs in one man from another, and might be made 
in each different from all ; and hence the sense-feeling 
is as the sense happens to be in the particular subject, 
and the gratification happens accordingly, and so the 
sense-gratification may properly be termed Happiness. 
But the reason is not made, and has no constitutional 
nature, and no diffeience of feeling for different 
subjects. It cannot be conceived to have feelings 
that happen to it in any way. As reason is, so it 
necessarily must be, and as its feeling is, so in the 
conditions they must have been, and no power can 
change it or them. Were reason to be other than it 
is, it would become unreason ; and were its feelings 
in any case supposed to have been different from 
what in that case they were, they could not have 
been the feelings of reason. There is no nature, and 
no making about it ; above and beyond all of nature, 
reason is and must be eternally the same. When 
sense loves flesh, it might have been constituted to 



358 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

love herbs ; arid when it lives happily in air, it might 
have been made to live happily in water. But when 
reason feels obligation, or remorse, or sell-approbation, 
or reverence, it cannot be conceived that, by any 
possibility, it should so have been constituted as to 
have there felt differently. They are not feelings 
that can happen to it, from some essential changes 
happening to be made" in it ; for its essence is abso- 
lutely changeless. It is as truly ultimate and immuta- 
ble in feeling, as in knowing ; and as ultimate and 
immutable in willing, as in knowing and feeling. 
It is supernatural, and hence beyond all nature's 
changes ; and is s rule for all, in all places and in all 
periods. The strongest obligation possible is, that 
the imperative is reasonable ; and the highest approba- 
tion possible is, that reason is satisfied. Authority 
can have its investiture from nothing other than rea- 
son, and can attach its claims only to reason ; and 
can fix approbation only to the reasonable. Man 
participates in all this not as sensible, but solely as 
reasonable. 

In the last place, and higher than all, Man's endow- 
ment of reason raises him to the sphere of Theology. 
Sense can know nothing of God, nor in anything can 
it be brought in sympathy and communion with God 
in any one of his attributes. Animal being can 
neither know whence it comes nor whither it goes, 
and may only possess and enjoy what has been given 
to it. When sensibility is empty, it is uneasy ; when 
fully supplied, it rests in a surfeit. It has gladness 
; " it« fulness, but knows neither gratitude for sun- 




REASON IN HUMANITY. 359 

plies, nor reverence or respect for any providential 
guarding and overruling. But the impartation of 
reason to man capacitates birn to see, in the things 
which are made, the thoughts and intentions of the 
Maker, and thereby clearly to know his power and 
wisdom and essential Deity. Both that God is, and 
what God is, reason reads in his works. Communica- 
tions made through any appropriate symbols can reach 
the reason, and the evidence that they come from 
God reason also can receive. Neither religious faith 
nor divine worship is possible, except to a person 
endowed with reason ; and what should purport to be 
a revelation, opening a door for heavenly communion, 
could awaken only credulous superstition till it was 
brought to the light of reason. Any declarations it 
may make concerning truths beyond the reach of 
finite human reason, the man may accept on the 
strength of the divine testimony; but the ground of 
the testimony must come within the light of reason, 
and then the message declared may be rationally re- 
ceived, though the manner how that truth shall be 
explained may yet remain in utter darkness. 

Reason, thus, prepares man for both natural and 
revealed religion, and gives to him an ultimate stan- 
dard. " There be gods many, and lords many; " and 
many assumed revelations; but wherein they differ, 
all except one must in something come short of the 
full claim of reason. Only that assumed religion, 
which fills the claim of reason, can be the true and 
safe source of confidence. That the Deity on which 
the religion rests is accordant with reason will, in all 



360 KNOWLEDGE OP CREATION. 

cases, constitute the very ground for our religious 
allegiance and devotion. Not any gratification of 
constitutional sensibility is to bold us in his service, 
but the conscientious conviction that himself and 
the service he requires are entirely reasonable. No 
service is from pious love, if it spring not more from 
reverence for God's reasonableness than fondness for 
God's kindness. Finite reason finds in the Absolute 
Reason the ultimate rule which is to settle for us, 
both the God we must choose and the service we 
must render, if we would gain our own and God's 
approbation. 

So endowed with reason, man is competent to 
study nature, live in society, and commune with 
God. Creation is about him to be learned and be 
used : he is in the midst of his fellows to help and 
be helped by them ; his Maker is ever present for 
his loving trust, and immortality opens before him 
an endless conscious and responsible experience. In 
him is the crown of all terrestrial existence, and na- 
ture has its end in subserviency to man's reason, and 
the end of man's finite rationality is eternal com- 
munion with the Absolute Reason. The Ultimate 
Unity is Unity in Reason. 



Note. — Humanity can be comprehended in full Idea, only in the 
History of Man through his trial, fall, redemption, and resurrection 
to Eternal Life ; and such a work, with the Title of Humanity Im- 
mortal, may be anticipated as speedily following the present pub- 
lication. 



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